


Facades of respectability

by girlofthemirror



Category: Sherlock (TV), Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Genre: F/F, Femlock, genderflipped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-04-29 18:19:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlofthemirror/pseuds/girlofthemirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson returns from the Boer war, she had been a Doctor and a hero and now she had nothing. Injury had ruined her chance to train as a surgeon and running out of funds and she was stuck in the grey fog of London in January 1903. </p><p>Only meeting Sherlock Holmes could improve things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Joan, but John.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fiction since I was a teenager and now I'm in my thirties. I'm rather worried I've got worse at this sort of thing. I guess we'll see. This was inspired by the femlockpals tumblr Femlock Appreication Week. I've been writing more and doing more research than I anticipated. Now amazingly beta read I'm sure there will be more soon!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now beautifully beta read by [Timothy the Pomolo King](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timothy_the_Pomelo_King/pseuds/Timothy_the_Pomelo_King) you can say hello to her on [tumblr](http://acerrimusarmis.tumblr.com/) as well if you like. She has done a marvelous job - this now has the appropriate number of commas! And now also by the delightful [ moreshipsthanthenavy ](http://moreshipssthanthenavy.tumblr.com/). So many thanks to both of them :)

There were 88 nurses sent to the Boer War, 88 intrepid women fighting the disease that killed thirteen thousand and the injuries of another twenty two thousand. She qualified from the London Women’s, but house officer places were impossible to find and her funds were running dangerously low- instead of allowing herself to become frustrated, she had embarked on an adventure.

Perhaps she couldn’t be a surgeon, but she was employed a medical officer to care for women and children in the Boer. Three years of madness in the Transvaal and John felt invincible; when the casualties came in, the military surgeons with their commissions forgot that she was only meant to treat women and children. First as an assistant anaesthetist, then on her own major surgeries, she mended where she could and amputated where that was impossible.

The four ward sisters were in charge of two hundred beds a piece and five surgeons to organise. Doctor Watson stopped being mistaken for Sister Watson and became known for her efficiency and cool head under pressure. She became an almost legendary figure amongst the younger nurses once it became common knowledge that she was a Doctor in her own right who could do more than just tend to children and who once fired a Captain’s pistol at an encroaching guerrilla force.

But the war almost ended her too- women were kept away from the concentration camps, yet the knowledge of their existence bit at her. Her patriotism began to feel like an itch rather than a balm. She made a plan: no more army jaunts, off to the Women’s School of Medicine when she returned. She would find a place if it killed her. With her parents now dead and only a younger brother who wouldn’t comment, there was nothing to stop her.

Plans have a habit of going wrong. There was no excitement in her injury. It was as meaningless as any she had treated. An accident with munitions being carried onto the ship forced shrapnel into her shoulder as she boarded to return home in 1902. She had intended to return to a new century and a new plan. Now everything was broken. She had escaped enteric fever throughout her three years of working more and more in the military hospital and less and less with the fairly healthy military wives. As a devout follower of Mrs Nightingale she had washed, scoured and scrubbed disease into submission, but under the care of others she succumbed.

Six months back in the capital and she was finally able to leave the convalescent home in the dreary suburbs. Her brother remained kind but useless: he had followed their father to the bar (both the hallowed halls of justice and the chop house bars) and maintained a room at his chambers on Fleet Street. 

There was no possibility of a single woman staying there, and so Miss Watson was renting a room at the most dreary boarding house for nurses imaginable, the religious nature of the place so confining. In the Transvaal, John had worn rational dress, ridden a bicycle, fired a gun, been put in charge of 200 recovering men and been called Captain Watson by the younger sisters (only half in jest). Morning prayers, matron and crinolines chafed at every one of John’s raw edges. Unfit to work, she sat and stared at the London fog whilst others were useful.

……………………………..

“Watson!” shouted a jovial voice over a perambulator. “It’s me, Mary Stamford- we were boarders together.” John turned and saw a round and perpetually cheerful face. They had gone from the same boarding school to train as nurses together and now sensible Mary Stamford had become Mrs Montgomery Hooper, married to the resident pathologist at Barts and the London. “Of course, no more working for me, not with this bonny lad,” said Mary.

“I imagine not,” replied John. This had always seemed to be one of the chief evils of marriage to her. But as ever, John had underestimated her friend, her round face tending to lead all and sundry to that particular error.

“I’m on the board now, at the London Women’s” said Stamford. “That’s the way to do it! And at the North London Collegiate – we’re sponsoring a place at Girton next year. Bright young things like we were, hey, Joan?” Hearing her Christian name always made John wince, but she had to admit that Mrs Hooper did seem to have a rather effective strategy.

Ruminating on her own lack of fortune and bleak prospects, John didn’t quite notice where the conversation was going until they had long since left Russell Square and were most of the down Theobald’s Road towards Dr Hooper’s office (he apparently enjoyed walking around St Bartholomew the Lesser with his little round faced offspring).

John knew she should be kinder, more patient, more interested. An old friend had retired from her career to have a kindly husband and a robust child. She was on boards and occupied with charitable works and furthering nurses education. It was all perfectly admirable; it made John want to scream. She kept almost making excuses of wanting to return to her dull damp lodgings to stare at the fog once more, but between her friend’s kind enquiries and good cheer she never quite found an opening. As much as she wanted to hide away and spit with frustration, she couldn’t quite hide her enthusiasm to look at the pathology rooms (the first enthusiasm she had felt in six long months). If she were ever to finish training at the Women’s then she’d really see one for herself. But that seemed almost impossible now. She was unlikely to be declared fit for practice. All women were said to be hysterical and liable to fits of madness, but now John couldn’t argue back as well as she once had.

Dr Hooper was thin (unlike his rather stout wife), shy, and awkward, but unfailingly polite. Most doctors were completely dismissive, but he seemed keen to meet someone with experience of tropical fevers and kept John talking for an eternity.

“The Transvaal, it must have been!” Said an odd looking woman as they entered the laboratory “No boring middle-class woman would let herself get that tanned in the English countryside.”

“Oh, thank God! Mrs Hudson couldn’t possibly object to you. She claims it would be inappropriate for her to have a single lodger and somehow two single woman would make the whole business respectable.” She grimaced at the concept of respectability. John wondered at her casual blasphemy and her strange tone. She was dressed in a dark purple suit. Fitted and smart with a small tight bustle, it was highly fashionable (as far as John could tell) but appeared to have a hole burnt through the sleeve left unmended.

“Miss Watson, meet Miss Holmes,” said Mrs Hooper “and yes, she is always like that.”

“You’ll want to sit down I imagine, you’ll be weak after the fevers” said Miss Holmes.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you Miss Holmes.” John couldn’t imagine sitting while this strange creature stormed around the laboratory. “Sorry, had Mrs Hooper mentioned me? I’m not looking for lodgings, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be absurd; of course you are. You’re dying of frustration in some dull little boarding house. It’s quite obvious you know the good Doctor, but more importantly his wife. Your familiarity is quite plain; you’ve known her for years – I see your sidelong looks at her newly acquired stoutness – so you were nurses together. You’ve obviously been very ill, as your clothes are far too big and a good five years out of style. The late ‘90s was such a particular moment for that length of sleeve…”

“Where could a nurse get ill and tanned at the same time? The list of possibilities is vanishingly small. I suppose you could have been to the colonies in general, but I cheated a little: Mrs Hooper is always blathering on about the necessity of war nurses, so I assume a connection to her general acquaintance, the Boer War is then the most sensible option. It is a quite basic deduction.”

Mary Stamford looked completely relaxed as Miss Holmes talking impossibly fast, described her as blathering and stout, and she only turned to smile at John.

“Well, Miss Watson, three pm at 221B Baker Street tomorrow, if you please. Mrs Hudson will need to meet you”

She began to collected her belongings, an attractive hat and a long wool coat were fixed with deft fingers. John couldn’t decide whether to laugh or rage, this woman was quite impossible. She settled for enquiring as to why she needed to meet a new landlady and was summarily told that all nurses’ boarding houses were hideous and that she obviously needed a new place to stay.

………………………….

As she sat through yet another tedious prayer session, John decided that of course she was going to meet with her. This miraculous woman who worked in a laboratory and was owed favours from apparently respectable landladies was too intriguing a prospect to ignore. Unlike Harry, John had been dull and sensible with the inheritance left when her father died and had a small annuity on which to live, but she doubted her ability to live in quite the same style as Miss Holmes with her expensive clothes. John made herself anxious about the cost of a hansom, then hating her own anxiety, decided she couldn’t face the odd looks directed at lone women on the underground system and walked the three miles from Kentish Town to Baker Street in the grey January light.

Mrs Hudson showed her upstairs, explaining “Dear Sherlock needed to be out from under her sister’s close eye and I could hardly rent her a flat. But I can run a boarding house for single women without parents; that would be quite appropriate.” Apparently the pair of rooms were fairly self-contained, with a small stove in the fireplace and a tap and sink in the small kitchen with a water closet out the back. “I wouldn’t be a housekeeper, I’m too old for the sort of thing. I rented to two gentlemen in the ‘80s and they made such a mess, forever demanding breakfast.” Just like yesterday, John felt unable to interrupt this stream of kind chatter to interject a little sense. She hardly knew Miss Holmes; she probably hadn’t the money for this sort of thing, and was probably still too unwell. Yet her objections remained somehow unvoiced.

Miss Holmes was laid out across a chaise in a blue dressing gown and smoking a cigarette. Unbidden, John remembered the only other woman she had known to smoke cigarettes. She felt herself stir, but tried to close off the unexpected memories. “Sorry, Miss Holmes, I thought you were expecting me,” said John.

“Sherlock, please and of course I was expecting you. I assure you my memory is more than capable of lasting twenty one hours.”

John looked at her, unsure what to say next.

“Don’t worry, I can tell you hate your given name. Your cringes every time Mrs Hooper used it were so ridiculously obvious. Did you know you have the most expressive face?”

John remembered who she used to be, the life she had lived in the women’s shared rooms near Mafeking, the relaxed lives they had all led and, reasoning that she was unlikely to shock this rude, strange creature (and since Mrs Hudson had already gone back downstairs), decided to just be bold.

“Well, I was Sister Watson for what feels like forever. After a while, the juniors just called me John,” she said, daring Sherlock to ask for an explanation, but she didn’t. Sherlock, lying about in the mid-afternoon déshabillé, didn’t ask a thing. She smoked her cigarette and fiddled with a notebook and didn’t say a word. It seemed she could tell it all with just a look. Despite Sherlock’s restless fidgeting, John felt relaxed. Someone who knew everything and didn’t ask- perhaps that would work.

………………………

Four days later, John wasn’t even sure when she had officially moved in. Mrs Hudson had a newly installed telephone proudly connected to the Westminster Victoria exchange and she bustled with excitement when the bell began to loudly ring ten minutes after her new tenant arrived. Before John had even had a sip of the tea Mrs Hudson had brought her (“Just this once, Dear”), Sherlock was a rush of activity, pulling on her overdress and boots and hat and ordering a flustered Mrs Hudson to call a hansom. John felt abandoned and useless once again when Sherlock turned.

“You were a nurse. You’ve seen death. I doubt you’ve got a weak stomach, and you don’t seem to prattle.”

“I was a Doctor in fact – the Women’s Federation appointed me to take care of military wives.” replied John, feeling strangely unafraid.

“A doctor, there is always something! Coming then?”

“Where?”

“There has been a theft! I long for a murder, but I can’t persuade the Metropolitan Constables to call me in. But a theft is better than nothing and this is practically Christmas – fourth in a series. Every time, the jewellery seems to be thrown away and then every time they later claim they were forced but can’t explain how, and by that point there is no sign of the jewels. But this time, Mrs Jennifer Wilson left herself a note in her apparent recklessness. A note- it’s Christmas!”

Somewhere in the madness and the running and Sherlock’s ridiculous schemes, John agreed to stay. Her small trousseau was fetched and now they were returning from a late night chop house which owed Sherlock a favour. John felt incandescent; for all the running, rational dress had been only practical (though practical didn’t seem to impede Sherlock) and John felt more like herself than she had since shrapnel pierced her scapula.

The kettle was hot on their little stove, and John made tea, letting it stew until it was too dark for polite company, hot and sweet like she’d drunk it in the army, perfect for a late night. And John thought this could be good. Perhaps, finally, she was home.

.........................

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated this to change John's career a bit. I'm doing a bit of research to expand on this AU and I found the most amazing resource:
> 
> This PhD on Early Women in British Medicine (http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/43950.pdf). Look at this amazing story of a woman doctor working out in the Transvaal. I was being a dreadful feminist and allowing preconceived notions on the limits set on women to cloud my judgement. After some proper research - I apologise Dr John Watson! Have a brilliant medical career and hopefully a fabulous affair with someone in the Women's Liberal Federation!
> 
> I'm posting about the research I do and other things related to this fic on [tumblr](http://girlofthemirrorjohnlock.tumblr.com/tagged/Facades-of-Respectability) so do have a look if you are interested.  
>  
> 
> **Ella Scarlett worked briefly in the Imperial Household of Korea. On her return, she went out to South Africa as medical officer to a refugee camp for Boer women and children in the war. While there, she joined a Women's Liberal Federation inspection of these camps led by Millicent Fawcett, during which she married a British officer. She then settled in Canada where she was in successful practice for many years.**
> 
>  
> 
> Also - I think I found some Victorian Lesbians.... lucky John!
> 
>  
> 
> **For others, such as Sophia Jex-Blake, it is clear that spinsterhood was a valued choice. Marriage was seen as incompatible with their own ambitions, but their emotional lives were fulfilled with passionate friendships with women.**


	2. The problems of melancholy, corsets and irritating sisters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now beautifully beta read by [Timothy the Pomolo King](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timothy_the_Pomelo_King/pseuds/Timothy_the_Pomelo_King) you can say hello to her on [tumblr](http://acerrimusarmis.tumblr.com/) as well if you like. She has done a marvelous job - this now has the appropriate number of commas! And now also by the delightful [ moreshipsthanthenavy ](http://moreshipssthanthenavy.tumblr.com/). So many thanks to both of them :)

“How could you? Sherlock, I know you’re in there,” John shouted, banging on the door to Sherlock’s room. “Sherlock, come out this instant!” The door swung open, leaving an irate, red-faced John unsure of what to do with herself. Sherlock lounged, as ever, in her blue robe with a cigarette dangling from her lip and John’s corset (cut into pieces) strung across her window, apparently completely relaxed despite the commotion. 

“It is a very important experiment. I need to know how the whale bone perishes in sunlight.” Sherlock said, as if that resolved the matter. Taking a drag on her cigarette she added confidently “You hate it anyway, so why do you care?”

“Yes, well…” John could never maintain the force of her protests in the face of Sherlock’s absolute, matter-of-fact self-belief. “It’s mine and it cost a bloody fortune and you should have asked.” 

This was the basic challenge of living at 221B. John could quite often build up a good head of steam, but even at her most infuriating, Sherlock was frequently right. She did hate her corset; it was rather hard to argue with that, and she hadn’t been using it lately anyway. She was fairly flat-chested, and with a vest underneath her shirt and tie, and her skirt and waistcoat of plain dark wool, she was unremarkable, as she preferred to be. Unlike Sherlock, who wore both ludicrously tight-laced outfits and then alternated these with modern cycling dress and, at home, her perpetual dressing gowns. The wind rather taken out of her sails, John rallied, trying to recover her dignity. “Tea?”

“Yes, fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Actually, I meant you could make it. You are the destroyer of perfectly good clothing here.” Sherlock gave a level look summing up her opinion on that topic.

“Fine, I’ll light the fire and get things warming. Do join me, though.” John’s frustration was palpable. Their cohabitation had been surprisingly peaceful (considering Sherlock’s habits), but this was becoming too much. She would regularly have times of low mood, curling in on herself and sulking, lying all over the chaise. But this was different: rather than listlessness that John could recognise as a feeling quite as upsetting to Sherlock as it was to John, the past week had been full of spite, deliberate bad temper and loud noises in the middle of the night. 

Sherlock had been restless and edgy - pacing their little flat like a caged animal. John didn’t quite understand it. Nothing restrained her; she had ample funds (as far as John could tell) and no reason to be stuck here. But she persisted in sulking, smoking, and now added to that delightful repertoire by destroying clothing. They needed a case.

Sherlock operated through a convoluted network of acquaintances (half of whom she seemed to hate) and disreputable contacts (who, John could tell, she loved), but their work was sporadic. Sherlock was a Girton woman, and with only a slight twist in her disposition could have been one of those blue-stockinged scholars. But it was undeniable - her Sherlock would never have been a scholar. Sherlock needed London, needed its business and variety and its mystery. Currently, it was failing to provide. John considered her friend: she wouldn’t eat and only smoked. As an almost-surgeon (a phrase of Sherlock’s she started to use even inside her own head), John was aware this was not ideal.

……………………………………………

After tea and toast, Sherlock seemed to relax. Seven days of perpetual, disgruntled lounging was apparently enough. She heated water and washed and dressed in an outfit not unlike John’s normal attire. Her curls now pressed flat in a tight, mean little bun, she started to fix a plain and clearly unfashionable bonnet over the top. John stared, confused. Was this an expression of Sherlock’s apparent malaise?

“John, don’t be so simple. I can hear you think. I’m quite aware this outfit is hideous. Well, I mean, you’re fine, obviously. But on me, this is hideous. It’s for a case, or at least the preparation for a case. Try to look religious.” She turned, a wide smile across her face. “Coming?”

The afternoon’s activities turned out to be quite unlike their usual adventures. They spent several frustrating hours poring through parish records in every church they passed, Sherlock acting alarmingly charming towards the various vicars and deacons they needed to persuade whilst John recorded every time a Philip got married or fathered a baby in her notebook. Sherlock muttered to herself and complained, but at St James’ in Clerkenwell, staring into the middle distance at an ugly painting of St Paul looking particularly censorious, she seemed to reach her own Damascene realisation.

Suddenly satisfied, she grabbed John’s arm and led them out of the church. Her pleasure was contagious, and after a week of anger and short tempers, John was swept up in Sherlock’s sudden joy (such a contrast to Sherlock’s false solicitousness with the deacon). Enjoying the closeness, John smiled back.

They walked East, across the city and towards the docks. Sherlock seemed to be taking them by the absolutely most disreputable routes she could find. As they walked past Spitalfields market, John began to understand. Carrying Bibles, they had the look of the reforming women so evident after the contagious diseases act. But rather than handing out tracts as they passed the stinking meat market, they focussed on the other things for sale. Sherlock would stop, handing over half-crowns to some of the gay girls they passed, asking if they knew an Ethel who had recently retired to be married. John wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. She maintained her composure and quietly ran through the treatments in her head for venereal diseases, wondering if her services might become necessary.

After more half-crowns than John cared to remember, they were directed to a small apartment above a pharmacy on Folgate Street. Sherlock looked with longing at the shop window, but then circled around to behind the building.

“We need to determine if Ethel is still working,” Sherlock whispered in a sharp, urgent tone. “Listening here will be the dullest thing imaginable, but it is probably the easiest way.”

They crouched close together touching all along their sides to share the benefit of the small area of shelter under the overhang from the upper storey, they waited in the cool, early-evening air. John nipped out to a potato man as the sun set and brought them back hot food. Sitting in the dirt, they shared the most companionable meal they’d had all week, the ridiculousness of their situation making John chuckle. As ever, Sherlock knew what she was thinking, “Well, it is a pleasant evening,” she said, starting to laugh a little herself.

Three men had come and gone whilst they got progressively more damp. Sherlock abruptly got up and abandoned all pretence of secrecy; as the last man left the apartment, she caught the door and climbed the stairs. It swung shut behind her before John could follow and, unsure whether shouting at Sherlock would endanger her, she fumed silently. This was forever the problem between them. One minute they were a team and laughing and it was such good company, and the next moment Sherlock was striding off, ignoring her existence and leaving John to stew. John could tell the abandonment came in two flavours: regularly Sherlock seemed to forget her existence in her excitement (which she rather understood- John wasn’t the dependant sort and she liked Sherlock’s enthusiasms), but the other type of abandonment was when she seemed to deliberately exclude her for a reason John could never fathom, and that rankled.

Fifteen minutes later, Sherlock returned to her rather anxious friend and strode off back towards St Paul's. In five minutes they were safely ensconced within a cab. John decided then not to fight- with Sherlock’s mood so improved, she didn’t feel like starting a row. “She wasn’t as stupid as I’d have guessed,” Sherlock started abruptly, “Ethel knew he was probably already married, saw the mark from a ring, but decided the extra security was probably still worth it.”

“The woman living there?”

“Yes, John, don’t be dull. Philip Anderson MP is married and from a Gloucestershire constituency. In the city he maintains a household and has now married Ethel under the apparently cunning disguise of his middle name (Thomas) instead of his first, when they were wed.”

“Is she threatening him or he her?”

“Neither – though that’s not an unreasonable theory. As I’m sure you know, bigamous marriage is often tolerated amongst the poor. No one is going to report someone who remarries in another parish so long as they meet their obligations. Yet for an MP, a court case would be very inconvenient. In this situation, however, there is little need to worry. She’s not living in the parish of St James (a surprisingly sensible precaution) and understands the situation she’s in. A court case would be problematic for her, so she sensibly gave a false name as well. No one will link Ethel Tims to Ethel Sims, though more invention would have been preferable.” Sherlock looked put out, but John, happy to rest her feet after walking eight miles around the city, could tell that was a front, and as the cab rattled across London, she watched her friend unwind. 

……………………………………..

John knew this particular favour was one that Sherlock had been hoarding. They drank their porter and sat hidden away in a box at the opera at Covent Garden. They hadn’t paid for their seats, nor was the box lit, giving their evening a rather illicit feel. Trust Sherlock to be kind by being selfish. She was transported, relaxed and perfectly enraptured by the over-the-top deaths enacted on the stage below them, but John could see it for what it was: Sherlock had crossed a line in the last week and this was her method of apologising, sorting herself out just enough that their household could return to a more even keel. As the cast below them overacted horrendously and sang beautifully, Sherlock snipped about the quality of the string section and John could see her equilibrium start to return.

“It’s my sister,” Sherlock said at the intermission, “She wrote at the beginning of the week, in her typical way.” She lit a cigarette and fiddled with the tight neck of her blouse. “She was widowed young - you’d almost think she planned it. Left her alone and with the sort of position where you can entertain and be deathly dull but still adequately appropriate. She has a minor role behind the scenes, she says - more like she bloody orchestrates every bloody machination in the country. But well, she needed a favour. She does so hate leg work.”

John could hardly contain her own surprise. She hadn’t heard one word about any family from Sherlock in the three months they’d shared lodgings. “A favour?”

“Yes.” 

“Have we been digging up dirt for your sister to use against someone?”

“Quite the opposite: Mycroft knew some dreadfully dull MP had got himself into a position to be persuaded and boring bloody woman can’t bear it when people can be persuaded by anyone other than her. Plus if he’d been arrested, it would all have been all even more exceedingly dull. The Blackmailers’ Charter made everything so much more boring.” Sherlock had a pinched look. “Not even an interesting fucking favour- very easily solved in the end.” John was unsure she’d ever heard Sherlock swear. She liked to blaspheme regularly (for the response, John thought) but this really seemed to touch a sore spot. “She was beginning to get irritating about it, threatening my allowance. I need independent funds, John.”

“Mycroft!”

“Oh, John, this is why you are tolerable. Yes, Mycroft is, as you suggest, a ridiculous name.”

John knew that just as she needed Sherlock not to always be asking questions, on this occasion Sherlock needed just the same favour to be returned. It was a rather odd way to build a friendship; female friendships were known (and often derided) for their talk, but their easy intimacy came from an ability to either just divine the answer without asking (Sherlock) or, in John’s case, know when to leave well enough alone. Sherlock would have preferred for her independence to be unassailable, but John knew it was few women who truly could achieve that luxury. “Well, as you do seem able to tolerate me, let’s get some decent dinner and go home, shall we?”

…………………………………

John was not, as a rule, prone to introspection. The haunting, half-delirious memories of aching fevers as their ship sailed through tropical waters aside, it was rare for John to dwell on things. She was a practical person and had always been fairly decisive. But Sherlock’s comments after the case stuck in her mind. Being tolerable was hardly the most effusive of compliments, but from Sherlock who could hardly tolerate herself at times, she knew it meant something.

In the past, John had been involved in several affairs. A ‘pash’ at school was so common as to be unremarkable; continuing this through nursing and even more covertly at LSMW perhaps a little more unusual. But in some ways, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's maxim 'the first thing women must learn is to dress like ladies and behave like gentlemen' seemed to fit John rather well (though the dressing like ladies part was not her forte). She had never much worried. Unlike those between men, women’s affairs could easily maintain the guise of friendship, and she had rarely been the sort of vulnerable girl who might have been shipped off to a reform school.

Her intimacies had been simple and relaxed, and as John considered her own history, she realised they were surprisingly numerous. Her brother had remarked that there always seemed to be some girl about the place. If you counted that time the boat moored on the Arabian side of the Suez, they had also taken place on three continents. But not since she was fifteen had John felt so swept away. However, Sherlock did not seem the type, which was fine with John. She felt no need to muddle her housing arrangements. A casual affair could be fun and relatively low risk, but to pursue anything with Sherlock would require the type of toxic secrecy she had seen ruin people’s lives, especially if Sherlock achieved enough success to build her reputation, which John wanted desperately for her friend.

In that light, what she was planning seemed like madness. She was already wrapped up in Sherlock to what she recognised was a slightly unhealthy extent, and this would only tie them closer together. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it; they did need independent funds. She looked again at the advertisement in the magazine promising £4 for stories judged worthy of inclusion. Not only might that income itself be rather useful to their little household; it might help in other ways. Whilst she could hardly advertise that two women were solving crime, she could perhaps include enough detail that people might search them out.

With that in mind, she continued where she had left off the night before in the story she had tentatively titled “A Study in Amethyst”:

“We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows.”

Predictably, Sherlock hated the idea. She threw an impressive strop and did violence to her violin for the evening. But the next morning, she had to admit she couldn’t actually find a flaw in the plan. Using only their initials, SH and Dr W, and male pronouns, John wrote her account and submitted it anonymously to the Strand. She was circumspect about details but did include their address, making it difficult for even a personal acquaintance to recognise them but for the detail of their lodgings, hoping that anyone who had a mystery to solve might approach them. They could then decide whether to reveal their identity or maintain the fiction of surprising coincidence or error, depending on the approach.

……………………………...............

Sherlock knew she had been pushing it. Aware that in general, people found her tiresome, she had been trying to keep herself in check. The problem was that her sister was just the most irritating human in existence. She needed a better plan of attack than the one she had currently. She had been worrying about the detail of the case they’d had back in January that had cemented their friendship. As much as she found John’s writing exaggerated on the whole, she couldn’t help but snort at the particularly daft title. Then again, she supposed Mrs Wilson’s obsession with matching the colour of her dress and her jewellery had proven important.

Something about that case stuck in her mind. The solution seemed too clever. She understood that Jemima Hope had felt there was no point worrying about the future when she could see the cancerous ulcer in her breast, but she struggled to think she’d have found the opportunity alone. John had saved her in that case too, catching Hope from behind as she swung at Sherlock. John had seen the ulcer, understood its relevance and, in a surprisingly pragmatic move, struck the painful lump to prevent her from attacking Sherlock.

John had actually proven quite helpful on cases. She seemed to respect that Sherlock was clever and didn’t spend her entire time looking at a slender woman and coming to the conclusion that she was only ever a step away from fainting. In fact, John seemed to trust that Sherlock was capable in general, which was not something she’d experienced before. Mycroft, their parents and her governess had all known she was intelligent, but even at Girton she felt like she spent her entire time proving herself to the detriment of actually getting anything done. After their parents died (her mother of consumption and her father of a stroke), Sherlock had thought it might become easier, but she couldn’t bear to set up the sort of society household her sister ran, all pretence and propriety. She had thought of staying at Girton or perhaps trying St Hilda’s, but the dull earnestness of the scholarly types caught at her as well.

John had come into her life just as the work started to pick up. She had been paid handsomely for the amethyst case (damn it, now she was using John’s flowery prose inside her own head) and today she had been thrilled to see her network of payments to prostitutes coming into its own. She was sure her sister’s problem was settled; without the trust of the women she’d never have found Ethel Sims. It seemed to be rather a validation of her methods.

She’d slept deeply and until late morning, the night after the case. But tonight, Sherlock sat on her chaise and plucked at the E string on her violin. She knew John hated the midnight playing (she’d been shouted at several times), but the touch of it soothed her. She’d solved her sister’s boring problem and, she had to admit, John had a reasonable scheme for drumming up new clients. She should be content.

But as ever, Sherlock Holmes felt restless. It worried her that she knew she didn’t want to push too far. She really didn’t want John to leave. It wasn’t like John had many other options: the flat was cheap for its location, and Sherlock knew John liked Mrs Hudson. She seemed to like the cases as well (which, to be honest, surprised Sherlock – people were rarely sensible enough to interested in puzzles). It was quite logical that John would stay, but she still worried. What if she was upset about her stupid, ugly, ancient corset? (How could any person be? Destroying that was a boon to mankind as a whole.) The problem was that her thoughts wouldn’t stop circling around what John would or would not like and it distracted her.

The anxiety had her itching for the cocaine bottle and the perfect clarity of thought it brought about. But she had to agree with Mycroft’s assessment here, it turned out that whilst it was gorgeous for brain work in the short term, overuse had led her to become embroiled in a few undesirable situations. Her independence was too fragile to risk on the perfect detachment of morphine or the wonderful focus of cocaine. Her standing in society such that she felt she could choose between oblivion and action even whilst she saw so many dull men able to have both. She willed her thoughts back to her own control and then remembered that she had been seriously deliberating whether or not somebody liked her and thought perhaps even cocaine was a better option. ‘How positively childish,’ said a voice in her head, sounding suspiciously like Mycroft at her most supercilious. 

She’d left John the afternoon of the case whilst she spoke to Ethel, because she worried about the distraction from the work. She had been so close to inappropriate laughter under the eaves of the building with John. It felt paradoxical. On the one hand, John helped with the work and respected Sherlock’s ability. On the other, the mere presence of John distracted her from her focus. Disgusted with her own stupid head, she decided that John’s dislike of being woken be damned and started on some arpeggios. As their organised pattern of progression through the related keys calmed her, she transitioned into Mozart and let the soothing melody sing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Sherlock would have a prostitutes’ network! Prostitution rates in the capital were the source of numerous moral panics but they really were fairly high. It tended to be a fairly transient profession- some women exploited and trafficked but a surprising number of enterprising businesswomen arriving at fairly stable arrangements and relative financial freedom. The contagious diseases act in 1864 lead to high levels of harassment but also a lot of religious women trying to convert prostitutes to work that was usually less risky but had much lower pay (the Sealed Letter by the lovely lesbian author Emma Donohue including some interesting details about this). 
> 
> The Blankmailers’ Charter was the name given by the press to the Labouchere amendment which was used to prosecute gay men for gross indecency and also included amendments to make it easier to prosecute people for bigamy (as record keeping improved the “I thought my previous spouse was dead” defense stopped working so well). In researching this fic I found this really interesting article. Did you know that before the first world war there were far fewer prosecutions under this law suggesting thing the Victorians had a relatively permissive attitude to [queer sex](http://www.historyextra.com/article/sex-and-love/victorians%E2%80%99-surprisingly-liberal-attitude-towards-gay-men)
> 
> “Always having girl about the place” – Florence’s description of her love life in Tipping the Velvet. There aren’t that many first hand descriptions of lesbians’ sex lives from the period – Anne Lister certainly had no trouble picking up women and Mary Benson who had the reputation of being one of the cleverest women in England and was the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury struggled with her affairs with women from a religious perspective but came to view them as ‘gifts from God’. I’m trying to do my research but as Sarah Waters wrote a PhD on the subject and she thinks Florence could have known enough women to describe them like ‘different breeds of fish’, I’m going to decide that three continents Watson can keep her reputation with women on three continents in this incarnation without it becoming too implausible!
> 
> ACD was paid £4 for “A Scandal in Bohemia” – the first story published in the strand. And the quote that follows is the opening of Chapter 2 of “A Study in Scarlet” the story of their meeting.


	3. A theatrical case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A client finally comes calling at 221B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now beautifully beta read by [Timothy the Pomolo King](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timothy_the_Pomelo_King/pseuds/Timothy_the_Pomelo_King) you can say hello to her on [tumblr](http://acerrimusarmis.tumblr.com/) as well if you like. She has done a marvelous job - this now has the appropriate number of commas! And now also by the delightful [ moreshipsthanthenavy ](http://moreshipssthanthenavy.tumblr.com/). So many thanks to both of them :)

The story was published and did indeed seem to do the trick. Three weeks after it appeared in early May, they received a late-afternoon call. Mrs Hudson was terribly impressed by the appearance of a client but seemed to decide that she had to play chaperone and sat awkwardly in the corner, leaving John to organise tea.

Mr Banner seemed flustered by the appearance of two women. “Oh, good afternoon Miss, and um… Miss.” Sherlock sat, imperiously, and Mr Banner composed himself now that all the women in the room were seated. Sherlock looked on with increasing displeasure as he began to chuckle quietly. “No, don’t misunderstand me. This is perfect. I take it you are SH?”

“Yes, I’m Miss Holmes and my friend is Dr. Watson.”

“Colleague,” corrected John, slightly uneasy with the conversation.

“Indeed.” Sherlock did not even pause. “Continue, Mr Banner. As briefly as possible, if you may. You have a problem you think the police would scorn.”

“Gosh, yes that’s right. You really as clever as the story suggested.” Sherlock’s face twitched between pleasure at the compliment and impatience. “A friend of my sister’s friend.” Sherlock gave an arch look at this convoluted relationship. “Let me start again. I live with my sister and her friend called Nancy. Nancy has connections to the theatre and her friend there has been blamed for something that could not possibly be his fault, but as you suggest he is likely to get short shrift from the police.”

Mr Banner looked resolved as he said “Could you come to our house in Bethnal Green? This would be much easier to explain in person.”

As soon as he left the room with a promise that they would join him the next morning (Sherlock said they needed time to prepare), Sherlock turned to John, eyes bright. She looked delighted with herself. A real client had sought them out: This person was no acquaintance and had no tangential connection to her (or her sister’s) life. 

Sherlock spent the evening frantically reading and pinning things to the wall in some scheme that John was unable to follow and would surely attract Mrs Hudson’s ire. John could tell that Sherlock was concentrating and sat at the desk writing her next story for the Strand on one of their cases in the last month. She brought Sherlock tea at regular intervals, some of which was left to grow cool but most of which was absentmindedly drunk.

Unsure of herself, John rose to go to bed and Sherlock turned to her as if noticing her for the first time. “No, sit there. You are quite vital to the process”. She began to run through her thoughts out loud as if she had been talking to John all evening: “I’ve been researching the West Indies; do you have any idea of the amount of sugar consumed by theatre-goers? It may prove pertinent.” Her thoughts rattled along at a ridiculous pace. John understood that she wasn’t really meant to enter into a conversation; Sherlock was just running through her own ideas. John listened and occasionally contributed (“Malaria can lie dormant for years, did you know?”), but mostly she listened.

In the evening light of the gas lamp, Sherlock paced and talked and damaged the wall paper. John kept meaning to go upstairs, but she never could maintain her good sense in front of Sherlock when she was like this- animated and so cocksure. She loved her odd angularity and quick harsh gestures. John realised that she would happily watch her for ever. When had she started feeling this way? She couldn’t place it. But she felt pulled into a vortex. She was caught between feeling excitement about her life and friend and fear that this was all so unwise. She knew herself and her own predilections and she needed to get some space, or she would make a fool of herself.

Worse than looking a fool, she would endanger them both: Sherlock was uninterested in sentiment and whilst she worked well with John, she was absolutely not that sort, as John reminded herself. On top of that, she needed a public face. Though John could feel herself falling closer into her friend’s orbit, she also knew that beyond Sherlock’s disinterest, she couldn’t possibly risk their work by opening them up to scandal.

Part of John felt depressed at the realisation that she both honestly wanted to and absolutely couldn’t pursue anything with Sherlock. But for all the maelstrom in her own head, this household was what she wanted. She could hear Mrs Hudson pottering about on the floor below and Sherlock pacing and occasionally talking. She knew she absolutely had to let this be enough. Inverts were described as perpetual children unable to grow up and experience either proper friendship or proper love. John was unsure of these ideas and had always found her own affairs wonderful, but she had to admit that they hardly made her feel like this. She had been a lover to more than a dozen women but she had never really cared all that deeply.

She had always maintained herself as a safe and separate island: She had fought through her parents’ arguing and drinking and death; she had maintained her independence in the face of her brother’s irresponsibility; she had fought to support herself whilst training and, rather than consider defeat in front of the blockades against women’s appointments at the Royal Free or take the conjoint for the General Medical Council, had fought disease in a war instead. When she came home, she felt like there was no fight left in her at all.

Perhaps this was her battle now, maintaining and protecting her little household. In a few short months, this flat was more like home than that her own parents had provided. Yet at the same time, she felt that Sherlock knocked down every one of her walls and required her to build them up more strongly.

………………………………….

John could almost have laughed at the situation in front of her. In the bright but very cluttered room about 10 feet square, there seemed to be an endless number of bits of paper. She sat cramped on a dining chair next to Sherlock, who had taken over one of the armchairs with a proprietorial air. Between bookshelves and a dresser against the walls, they were almost knee to knee with two women a few years older than John. Also present was Ralph Banner with a boy of about ten, sitting beside the fireplace and further filling the already tightly-packed room, along with a promise that his wife and the subject of their case would join them shortly.

Nancy Astley began, “In the early ‘90s I worked in the theatres and I still have some friends there. William Mann used to work in the front of house when I was there, but now he specialises in the lights and runs the limes at a variety house in Shoreditch. He’s been sacked and blamed for poor reception to performances. The theatre world is so tight-knit, he fears he won’t get another job without sorting the business out.”

“What has he been blamed for?” asked John.

“For the audience reaction. They are claiming his shadow is scaring patrons so much they can’t enjoy the show. He is careful, but of course you sometimes see the limesman’s fingers over the light. It’s always happened. But the audience keep screaming out and now he’s been sacked and has no idea what to do.”

“Quite. Why on earth are the proprietors blaming him?” said Sherlock, “It’s a common problem with theatre lights; they are heavy enough to move that the shadow of the man is often seen.” 

“Well, Miss Holmes, I think it is because his shadow is a bit darker than average.”

Miss Astley explained that Billy-boy was the son of a freedman in Jamaica and didn’t want to talk to the proprietor or anyone else, as he felt it unlikely anyone would listen. Yet John could tell that that would never be enough for the quietly forceful pair in front of them.

“They are quite wrong,” cut in Miss Banner, Ralph’s sister. She took a deep breath over her cup of tea and launched into an in-depth discussion of unionisation of theatre workers and enfranchisement of those in the colonies, managing to slip in her opinions on Keir Hardie and Irish nationalism along the way. John felt they were rather straying from their point and seeing, Sherlock rapidly losing patience, tried to get the conversation back on track.

“Where does he work? Perhaps it might help to see the theatre.”

They went to the Shoreditch Empire straight from Bethnal Green. It was hardly the area for a cab to be sat waiting, so they walked the mile and a half, Sherlock fidgeting as she thought through the problem ahead of her, John looking at Sherlock’s hands and then trying to pretend that she wasn’t.

“An unusual household,” said John, unsure if she wanted to open this conversation but seemingly unable to avoid it, “I mean, that’s quite a few people in a two-up two-down.”

Sherlock looked at her as though she was being idiotic. “John, do try not to blather. Two families in one house is not uncommon. Yes, I noticed they are improperly involved. No, I couldn’t deduce how they acquired the child, though I don’t think he is related to either of them based on the eyebrows. No, I don’t care. I was thinking. Are you done?”

As ever, Sherlock’s ability to see through John’s words to her meaning made her relax. “It really is incredible how you can always do that- pull the thoughts outs of my head.” Sherlock half-smiled and returned to her animated thinking.

At the Empire, they met up with Billy, still looking for work in the theatre district. “Are you Miss Holmes?”

A curt nod from Sherlock his only response, Billy continued, “Those two can never let things lie, but I am glad you’re taking the case.”

“Will someone let you in the stage door? I need your opinion on the lighting. Do attend the next show,” Sherlock said without introduction.

Rather than trying to discuss anything with the manager, Sherlock just bought them two tickets for the rotating programme that would start again in 40 minutes, leaving Billy to find his way into the stalls. In the interim, Sherlock paced around the perimeter of the building, checking which doors she could open and looking at the piles of fag ends outside the stage door, many of them with greasepaint stains still on the discarded ends. A commotion came from the front of the theatre, the patrons now running out. Sherlock rushed towards the noise.

They slipped into the building and towards the foot of the stage, where the lights were trained up onto it and the musicians chattered and gossiped. In a nearby box almost overhanging the stage was the master of ceremonies, recognisable in his top hat and powder and bent over a young woman.

Brenda Tregannis, sister of the proprietor, was dead. Sitting next to her brothers, she had screamed in apparent pain and then died in full view of the terrified audience, her expression in death a mask of horror. Sherlock slipped into the office with the Master of Ceremonies as he rushed to call the Yard. John, seeing an opening, went to the box.

“I’m a Doctor” John said confidently (forgetting how long it had been since she’d uttered those words), and, wanting to get some of the hangers-on out of the way, added, “Fetch these men some tea.” A young man scurried off to do her bidding. John approached the woman, checking for a pulse at her neck to be sure she was dead. She saw Sherlock returning as she checked for any sign of life, only to find none.

Sherlock, close to her, whispered, “Look after the brothers and find out what they know. I’ll join you shortly.” She began to comb the box in detail, clearly aware of the limited time before the constables arrived.

The boy returned with cups of tea half-spilled in his haste. John turned to the two men, summoning her most matronly air. “Come on now, that’s it. Let’s go and sit in the office.” They were both shaking, insensible in their fear. She led them down the narrow corridor that opened onto the box and, sitting them down, handed them their tea. “I am a doctor,” she said in explanation as she went to check their pulse and eyes. The pair of them looked at her as though she might be able to save them, a sight John had not seen in some time. Both were pale and clammy with racing pulses, but John couldn’t see anything obviously the problem.

The elder brother started speaking in a shaking voice, “My heart was in agony; I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.” He drew such rattling, rapid breaths that John worried about his lungs and wished for a stethoscope. “My sister just screaming…. so much pain….” She was unsure whether he meant literal or metaphorical pain but, as the sister died clutching at her chest, she assumed he was speaking literally. She had seen men die from clots on their lungs after surgery, especially amputations, but she couldn’t think of any cause of contagious and sudden issues in the heart or lungs.

Taken away from the scene of their sister’s death, they grew slightly calmer. “She died of fear, I’m sure of it. I have never felt anything like it. I could see shadows and there was a man coming in from the dark of the crowd!”

“You were up in your box, do you mean someone came in from the corridor?”

“No, it was in the shadows. There was something coming in from the dark; I could feel it.” He was sobbing gently. John knew she would get little sense from them until they calmed down, so she opened the window and poured more tea from the pot.

John found remarkably little else out. The men were scared and shaken and sure that ill-formed shadows in the gloom were the cause of their sister’s death. John didn’t know what to make of the two young men. She had seen death at close quarters before and knew it could be shocking, and their sister’s unexplained death would obviously be upsetting, but they didn’t seem upset. They seemed almost unhinged, scatter-brained, and talked in fragmented half-sentences.

Sherlock joined her ten minutes later. Her pockets bulged with what look like small amounts of everything from the box: one of the tankards they’d drunk from, a flyer with the playbill printed on it, bits of the curtain tassel, and even a small patch of what appeared to be chair upholstery. “Come on, John. Let’s get home. Billy has been found in the audience and arrested. I have work to do, and there is no more to see here.”

……………………………………..

Back at Baker Street, Sherlock began to examine her samples. She explained to John: “She must have been poisoned. It’s the only explanation.” Riffling through her supplies, she continued, “I think the brothers caught the edge of it, but she was a very slight woman and they were both quite large, so I think they were able to shake of the effects, whilst for her the dose must have been too much.”

She felt confident in this theory, though she was completely unsure as to what had been the poison. Setting equipment up on the dining table, she thought about how she could look for adulterants. The poison had been fast-acting and all three seemed to have been exposed. She had taken things from the environment for completeness but thought that an ingested toxin was probably most likely. As she lit a cigarette to help her think, she realised it could possibly have been inhaled as well.

She decided to start by looking for heavy metals which she could try at Baker Street. If nothing was revealed then perhaps she could purchase some mice in the morning. She’d taken samples of the boiled sweets the siblings had been eating and the paper they were wrapped in, as well as the tankards they were drinking out of.

Settling down to work, Sherlock couldn’t help but rejoice a little. She was involved in murder investigation. She had a theory she was pleased with and work to do to confirm it. Setting up chromatography strips to compare the food in the box with the samples she’d filched from the shop, Sherlock rose to make tea while they ran. John had been magnificent today- a Doctor was a surprisingly good find. She had confirmed the cause of death and made it so that Sherlock didn’t have to interact with a surgeon brought in by the police. Neglecting her tea, Sherlock picked up her violin and let her mind wander.  
……………………………….

After her late night the evening before. John retreated to bed, leaving Sherlock to continue with her tests. They were both poor sleepers at best, John still torn by nightmares of fevers on a rolling ship and Sherlock always so restless. When there was work to be completed, she seemed to subsist on tea and toast, getting progressively darker rings around her eyes.

John slept deeply with no disturbances after the activity of the day and was woken in the small hours by Sherlock’s violin. She was playing melancholy, sweeping music that John had never heard her play before. When Sherlock tortured her instrument in the night, John felt quite justified in telling her to shut up, but this beautiful music sometimes merged into her dreams, averting her nightmares. She always rather liked waking up to hear the gorgeous melodies only played in the middle of the night.

John began to doze off and thought (illicitly) of Sherlock’s long fingers. Warm and relaxed in her bed and thinking of Sherlock’s clever fingers was perhaps a poor plan, but the middle of the night gave John a feeling of freedom. The street lamps gave off a hazy light and the spring night was mild. It felt like stolen, secret time. Downstairs, Sherlock had her first murder to investigate and in her warm blankets, John had sleepy thoughts of a musician’s talents. Without quite making the conscious decision to, John put her hand on her own stomach.

She began to stroke her skin in time to the dreamlike tempo; running her hand up under her nightgown, she felt the ridges of her collarbones more prominent than usual after her illness, the fingertips of her right hand wandering over her breasts and stomach as she licked the index and middle fingers of her left. Her right hand pushing more firmly against her breast, she put her fingers into her drawers tight against herself. Feeling her nipple tighten, she just held her left hand against her cunt as it warmed. Not moving her hand yet, she held it still but hard against herself, barely touching. Drawing her left hand slowly up over herself she shivered, then licked her fingers once more and returned them to the now-damp flesh. With the dreamlike music and the nighttime hush, John took her time. She made small movements against herself, rocking her hand and moving the tips of her fingers against her opening but not slipping them inside yet.

She grew wet and felt her hips fidget against her hand. Again, without quite making the conscious decision, she couldn’t help but imagine her hands were Sherlock’s. Sherlock’s long fingers against her breast and her other hand teasing at her cunt. Thoroughly wet now, John pushed harder at herself. Rubbing her fingers more firmly, she circled her clitoris and felt her breath start to come in pants. Bringing her right hand down to her cunt as well, John rolled onto her front. She put the fingers of one hand just inside and lay on the heel of her hand. Holding one hand on top of the other hard against herself she pushed against her palm repeatedly, moving her fingertips inside. Breathing heavily, she luxuriated in the feeling, rolling her hips harder into her hands.

Feeling her breasts squashed against the mattress, she imagined Sherlock’s bony frame below her pushing back just as hard against her. John’s hand started to cramp a little, but she could feel that she was so close and only twitched her fingers harder inside. Her hips moving hard enough to squash her hands, she felt herself start to reach that gorgeous plateau and fall off into orgasm. Feeling herself pulse and her muscles contract against her fingers she took a shuddering breath and relaxed, her hips still twitching a little. She drew her hands up to her sides and could smell herself on her fingers. Too contented to worry, and with Sherlock’s beautiful playing downstairs, John fell back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few more notes on John as a Doctor: in this story I have her graduating from the London School of Medicine for Women set up by the pioneering Sophie Jex-Blake (I suddenly wonder if Maria Jex and Zena Blake in Tipping the Velvet were tributes to her? Gosh I adore Sarah Waters). I’ve set John up as middle class, I think she was sent off to one of the early boarding schools for girls when her mother died (for example my school opened about four years too late for John to have attended but they really were starting around then). In my mind her father died while she was training to be a nurse with Stamford and she decided why not off the LSMW! The average age for women starting at the LSMW was 20, so John would have fitted right in. Women were barred from the main exams (the conjoint) until 1909 making it hard to get top positions but those with funds could set up in general practice (usually exclusively treating women and children). A very few did get positions in hospitals but they were heavily discriminated against. Women were appointed in public health and charitable positions so I think John’s route to the Boer War is plausible.
> 
> Tipping the Velvet – I couldn’t help but give Nancy Astley and Florence Banner a cameo role in this, the dates are perfect (TtV ended in 1895)! I adore Tipping the Velvet. As a terrified gay teenager I identified so strongly with Nan. I even had a crush on my own otherworldly emotionally unavailable girl. Plus there are only 18 works of fanfiction listed on the entire AO3 site. I can’t believe it! This incredibly fun book needs more love. Plus, to any lovers of femslash it includes some of the hottest F/F sex I’ve ever seen described.
> 
> The Shoreditch Empire was also known as the London Music Hall and entertainment in the area was said to rival the West End. It’s worth looking at this 1907 poster including of Hettie King Song sheet and including her dressed as a very [dapper chap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreditch#/media/File:HettyKingDark.jpg). 
> 
> Sorry about the hint at animal experimentation. I’m not going to have Sherlock do anything unpleasant to any animal. I guarantee it. But unfortunately this was standard in understanding poisons at the time. Until the 1950s frogs were injected with pregnant women’s wee to see if the woman was pregnant. So no animals will be hurt in the making of this fic, but unfortunately a huge number of animals were hurt in Victorian science. Interestingly, one of the first generation of women doctors “the beautiful and charismatic Anna Kingsford (1846-1888), MD Paris 1880, studied medicine primarily to further the cause of animals, to aid her antivivisectionist crusade. Determined to qualify without witnessing vivisection, she studied in Paris between 1874 and 1880 (with some classes at the LSMW), and submitted a controversial MD thesis on the merits of vegetarianism.” ([Source](http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/43950.pdf))
> 
> John’s wanking/Sherlock thinking soundtrack is “Après un Rêve” by Debussy (I would absolutely wank to Sherlock playing the violin. Don’t judge me).


	4. Error and Opportunity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the delightful [ moreshipsthanthenavy ](http://moreshipssthanthenavy.tumblr.com/) also, do check out xyr art blog - there is an amazing [illustration](http://girlofthemirrorjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/136071660071/graphicwing-not-so-very-christmas-cards-ready) for this Sherlock featured :). Now also Beta read by the brilliant [Ziggmund](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ziggmund/pseuds/Ziggmund). She did a fantastic job fixing my poor grammar and odd errors. Thank you so much!
> 
> Also, do feel free to check out my tumblr tag for [Facades of Respectability](http://girlofthemirrorjohnlock.tumblr.com/tagged/Facades-of-Respectability) featuring research and pictures and updates and anything else to do with the fic.

The second time John woke was to far less lovely sounds. A barking hack of a cough came from downstairs. John could hear the convulsive pace of Sherlock’s coughing and knew immediately this was not just the waking up of a heavy smoker, but something quite different. Fearing that perhaps Sherlock was choking, John raced downstairs in her nightgown, knocking over her bedside table in her hurry. She swore at the pain as it hit her thigh, but only paused to steady it with one hand, letting the letters on top fall to the floor as she ran down.

She was greeted by Sherlock folded double, coughing spasmodically. As soon as John inhaled she felt herself begin to cough and retch as well. She ran straight to Sherlock, barrelling her along in a headlong rush towards the heavy, bay window. Momentarily letting go of her friend, she wrenched the large, poorly balanced window open, letting in the smog-filled breeze from the cloudy London morning. Fear making her strong, she got the temperamental window all the way open and thrust her own, and then Sherlock’s head and shoulders, out over Baker Street.

Even though the air was as damp and laden with smoke as on any dingy London morning, John immediately breathed more easily. She took several deep, long breaths, feeling the pain tightening her chest calm. Sherlock was almost unconscious, eyes closed but still coughing weakly – John forced her head out over the windowsill, thankful she continued to breathe at all. She watched Sherlock take five shallow breaths, then holding her nightgown up over her face John left her friend propped up at the windowsill. First she pulled over the chaise and lay Sherlock on her side with the breeze in her face, checking again that she still breathed. Next she ran to open both the other wide bay window and the smaller half opening window in the small kitchen.

John returned to the chaise and Sherlock’s prone form. She leant down to feel the reassuring beat of Sherlock’s pulse and listened to her shallow breaths anxiously. She knew there was little one could do for victims of smoke inhalation – either they survived or the damage to their lungs was too great and they did not. Managing the pain and balancing the analgesic versus soporific qualities of morphine was the physician’s main task. Thankfully Sherlock was stirring. Pale as a consumptive, Sherlock’s hands twitched, coming up to her throat in the classic, pathognomonic action of all those struggling to breathe. Her pulse fast and her skin clammy, John knew that whatever had happened to Sherlock was the same thing that happened to the Tregannis siblings the day before. As she calmed, she looked more closely at the equipment on the table and then she saw a crucible dropped at the fire place. The foul smell still lingering, John left Sherlock to check that no more of the poison was left.

Fine white ash remained in the vessel. John found the metal tongs that Sherlock had used to handle it, ready to remove the acrid substance.

“No, don’t. We need the proof.” Sherlock’s voice came weakly and dissolved once more into coughing.

John couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or furious. Practical, as ever, she settled on ascertaining how Sherlock was doing first. “Can you breathe more easily now?”

“God this hurts like hell,” said Sherlock between spasmodic coughs

“I imagine it does. I’m just checking your pulse.” John bent to check over Sherlock. “Look up at me, let me see your pupils”. John kept expecting Sherlock to start protesting and her compliance seemed rather worrying.

As the paroxysms of coughing started to fade, Sherlock lay back against the chaise. Her dressing gown falling open. She stirred, sitting up urgently, “Oh God!”

John’s years of medical training were not without use, she had predicted that this much coughing would lead to sickness and held up the ashes bucket, which was the only thing to hand. “That’s it, you’ll feel better soon,” her calming patter unchanged since the war. John was rather relieved to have Sherlock look at her witheringly until she bent to vomit some more.

…………………………………………….

The pain was indescribable. Sherlock felt like her heart was going to beat right out of her chest (though even in her distress she was well aware this was not possible). Whilst as a general rule Sherlock wished to categorise everything, in that moment she couldn’t find an adequate scale for the pain. Her brain raced as the vomiting slowed and she began to take stock of herself.

Her head ached, her throat was sore and her stomach was still convulsing. She felt nauseous and tired all over. She hadn’t slept at all in the last 24 hours, and only a short four hours the night before. Even her eyes felt painful. Every part of her hurt. And there was John, using the same daft platitudes she had said a hundred times. Sherlock could tell John wanted her to scoff at them and so she did, but without quite meaning to she also took comfort from John’s presence if not her stock phrases.

“I know what we need to do,” Sherlock said, and winced at the sound of her own voice cracking and harsh. She hated to ever look weak but wasn’t quite sure she could muster a more rousing performance right this moment.

“Absolutely not!” said John, building up to a good shout and forgetting for the moment her calm bedside manner. “I can do my own bloody deducing and I think I know what happened here. Sherlock Holmes, so sure in her own damned invulnerability, nearly killed herself!” Then, suddenly quiet, she whispered, “How could you, Sherlock?”

Gathering herself to respond, Sherlock allowed the silence to grow. Seemingly, it took on a life of its own and despite Sherlock’s normal forthrightness she felt reluctant to jump in. She heard the fear in John’s voice and was strangely hesitant to make it worse. She felt torn in a way she was becoming distressingly used to. On the one hand she owed no explanations and didn’t care for others’ opinions, but on the other hand, it wasn’t that she owed John, it was that she often found voicing her thoughts aloud helpful and John’s good opinion valuable.

“Was it deliberate?” Asked John, her voice remaining quiet and rather halting. “Sherlock, I’ve been around melancholy people before, I know that you have dark periods, was your aim to hurt yourself?”

“No, well… No. It was not exactly that, but perhaps that I didn’t think to worry if I got hurt, it was the less important thing.” Despite her hoarse voice Sherlock spoke quickly, rushing to get it all out now that she had started. “I needed to know, and it was interesting. I was investigating the possibility of heavy metals, but knew they would be too slow to act. I was remembering the poisoning of Captain Cook’s pigs that caused such sudden death after puffer fish ingestion. I thought those biological poisons are so often fast acting.” Getting into her flow, Sherlock began to look more like herself and though she still reclined on the chaise her hands moved quickly, in characteristic animation, describing her thoughts. “A new poison, so inventive the possibilities for discovery. I needed to know.”

“You needed to know so you thought your burn something poisonous?” John said, incredulous.

“Yes, of course I did. Don’t be foolish, John. We needed to know. A man’s freedom depends on it. Never mind justice for Brenda – those are the sorts of full things you’re always going on about. Of course knowing was the most important thing. God, don’t be dull!” Building up a good head of steam, Sherlock continued, “Why I expected you to understand I don’t know. But it remains the case - the work is important.” She snapped each word out over her harsh breathing. “The only important thing.”

“Dying in front of your friend completely inconsequential to your thought process, I take it.”

“I don’t have friends.” Sherlock’s breath still heaving, this pronouncement seemed to take all the fresh air from the room. 

John, apparently abandoning her Doctor’s calm, executed a sharp military about-turn and said on her way out of the room, “I wonder why?” and marched up to her room.

Taking a deep breath as her lungs settled, Sherlock reclined and stared at the fire. She wondered exactly how the conversation had got so far away from her. It wasn’t what she had intended. She’d expected John to be excited about the possible resolution to the case (well at least the execution, she still was unsure on the perpetrator, though it was obviously not Billy). Her thoughts spiralling back around the details of the case, she took another breath. This was the problem. She needed to focus, one thought at a time. Sort out John first, then return to the case.

Questions circled Sherlock’s aching head. Why on earth had John been so unreasonable? Surely John knew the work was important? Yes, Sherlock could see that she had been a little reckless - but why was John so upset about it? It was just the previous day that John had confirmed their working relationship.

She longed for a glass of water, her mouth tasted foul and her head pounded. Usually John would bring tea, but obviously she wouldn’t at the moment. Somehow Sherlock’s focus on the work (their work, she had been starting to think) had angered her.

As her thoughts circled unrelentingly, Sherlock lay on the chaise breathing in the fresh draft. Slowly the sun climbed higher and the breeze freshened and the smog cleared somewhat. Sherlock looked to the window in surprise, realising at least an hour must have passed (not more than 90 minutes though – the sun was still at too shallow an angle for it to be 10 am). Deciding on her strategy, she absentmindedly drank the water at her elbow and lifted the bottle of Bayer’s aspirin next to it.

“Idiot!” She said out loud. John had obviously been the one to leave her both the water and painkillers. John had clearly left to walk (as she did when angry). Sherlock’s strategy would have to wait.

After drinking the water, she felt better. She rose only slightly unsteady and went to change her undershirt in her room. Redressed and with another glass of water and no sign of John, Sherlock decided to redouble her efforts on the case. Though she did make sure to leave the window open to continue ventilating the room.

…………………………………………………..

John walked fast, head down towards Regent’s Park. Striding out, the sky brightened above her and after two miles John felt her shoulder begin to relax and her mind started to follow. She knew Sherlock. Why on earth had she been surprised? She knew that Sherlock didn’t do emotion, except for her violin. She knew that the work was Sherlock’s first and only love. But in her mind she had been spinning out a gothic romance worthy of Catherine Moreland’s daydreaming. However, 221B was a long way from Northanger Abbey. She had been foolish. John knew that she was letting her nature run away from her. Sherlock neither wanted nor reciprocated her affections. She was not at all the sort.

Where did that leave John? She obviously wasn’t the sort for marriage. But she was also unsure of the options in front of her. Without her writing she could not really manage to afford her life at Baker Street. Setting up by herself, she might be able to manage outside of London. She had no capital so she could not support putting up her plate as a general practitioner or perhaps purchasing a boarding house (there really were frustratingly few enterprises that a respectable woman could run alone). She was unfit for adventure any more, the pain in her shoulder from just moving Sherlock this morning still bothering her.

Was there potential for a woman in medicine to earn a living or was it just an amusement for the young or the wealthy? Her options felt thin and examining them made John feel tired. But she was a person grounded in facts (however much Sherlock laughed at her romantic prose) and she forced herself to consider her own options. She was 30, she had the small drip of her annuity to keep her afloat, and she was an excellent and experienced doctor when abroad. But could that be translated to any success at home? She was not without options. She would not require Sherlock to be other than what she was. But John would make sure of her own space again, she needed an independent life, too.

Now she was mostly recovered from her injuries and rekindling her old fighting spirit she remembered the fun she’d had at the London Women’s. Some of the time was spent clinging to the edges to observe dissection or see clinical practice, but some of it had been marvellous. The camaraderie might be just what she needed now. A world of her own. At the southeast corner of Regent’s Park she realised she was almost halfway to Hunter Street and decided, impetuously to continue on towards the school. Perhaps they had a suggestion of somewhere that might be interested in employing a lady physician.

 

…………………………………………..

Doctor Sarah Sawyer had been in Edinburgh whilst John had been training. Now she ran a women’s ward at the Royal Free Hospital and was involved in the training of medical students, and she needed a houseman. Though, being a woman’s ward and it being the hospital where the London Women’s girls saw their clinical practice perhaps a housewoman would do as well.

“Just junior houseman’s work,” said Dr Sawyer, “on the Wednesdays and Thursdays when I need to be at the LMSW”.

“No, that’s fine.” Replied John

“You’re, um ... well, you’re a bit over-qualified. You were a surgeon in Africa?” 

“Er, I could always do with the money and houseman positions can be tricky in our situation.” John gave a tight smile, sure that Sarah would understand.

“Might be a bit mundane for you.”

“Er, no; mundane is good sometimes.” Thinking of her home life and the tumultuous thoughts in her own head, she confirmed, “Mundane works.” 

“You can’t have been a soldier?” said Dr Sawyer, her tone surprisingly playful

“No, not quite, mostly a doctor.” John realised that unlike Sherlock, this woman might be the type. She was smiling quite happily at John and Sarah seemed to read through her style of dress and manner in a way that for all Sherlock’s brilliance she never had.

“Anything else you can do?” Sarah smiled, relaxing. A woman could never employ a male doctor to be junior to herself and so perhaps, for Sarah, John was a rather good find. But Sarah looked more pleased than John would have expected, she was sure there were other girls graduating from the London that would suit just a well. 

“I went to boarding school – would you prefer that I dance or play the pianoforte?” John could tell she was flirting a bit now and decided, to hell with it. It had been more than a year- since before her injury. Perhaps a bit of flirting was just what the doctor ordered.

“Oh!” Sarah said, laughing “Well, I look forward to it! Can you start next week?”

John returned to Baker Street feeling that she had recovered her equilibrium. Sherlock was quite mad. But John could cope, she could recover from her anger and fear this morning. She would carve out this position and perhaps save enough to set herself up in practice. Clearly, she needed to move out from under Sherlock’s shadow and unwrap herself from the madness of Sherlock’s life. It was exciting and wonderful to be on cases, but it wasn’t real life. Real life was her medical career she had sacrificed so much for. Perhaps there would be a girl she could have a laugh with. Who could tell? She climbed the seventeen stairs and went to put the kettle on. Sherlock was, unsurprisingly, lost in her work.

But, when she saw John enter, Sherlock turned abruptly and put down the microscope slide, “John! I hadn’t expected you.” She moved around the table, unusually awkward. John worried that perhaps there were lingering effects of this morning’s poison. She said abruptly, “This morning… I wasn’t…. I didn’t…….” Sherlock visibly gathered herself and said deliberately “I don’t have friends, but I do have one.” And returned to her work as though that rather sudden comment would solve everything.

John felt poleaxed, this small, odd comment went straight through all her armour. She knew Sherlock, she could tell that for all her bluster, friendship was not something Sherlock was used to and she understood her comments for the apologies they were. She saw Sherlock’s work and her slightly frantic pace as she returned to her microscope, aware that just a few short hours ago her friend had been too ill to even hold her own head up. Perhaps Sherlock felt just as she did – clinging to her identity and purpose – in a stew of a world where, despite a new century, everyone felt so certain that any woman’s opinions were unnecessary (and even dangerous). For all that John wanted to dismiss Sherlock in her anger, she couldn’t help but respect her. This strange, unusual woman who fought the whole world to find work and interest. Sherlock’s insular nature was unchangeable and John needed to let her be, she didn’t want a different Sherlock. John was not suffering from some girlish crush where she wanted to fix her friend or change her. She understood that a softer Sherlock would not be able to pursue her work and life with such passion, but for all that, perhaps John’s plans of moving on would not be as easy as she’d hoped. 

……………………………………

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately the Radix pedis diaboli used as the poison in the adventure of the Devil’s foot doesn’t exist. Part of me wanted to come up with a really good real poison that actually worked this way. Then I remembered Doyle was a doctor and though medical science has advanced, the Victorians were truly excellent at accidental death and so if a better poison existed he’s probably have got their first and contented myself to continuing in his tradition of slightly fudging the details. 
> 
> Also, I want to pay tribute to wordsting’s Paradox Series. Her handling of this scene is one of my favourite and most heart breaking moments in any fic. She wrote it so much better than I ever could have, but I couldn’t get her wonderful take on it out of my head as I wrote this. So whilst I have tried to make this adaptation of the Devil’s Foot story my own I must acknowledge her beautiful story which has influenced mine.
> 
> Captain Cook’s crew ate puffer fish and suffered from numbness they also fed the leftovers to the pigs who died. It was recorded in his logs and is the first time Westerners were recorded to have died of tetrodotoxin poisoning. I think a Sherlock interested in gory deaths may well have heard of this…
> 
> The Royal Free Hospital is where the women at the LSMW did their clinical training. Plus it employed six women in 1907 so I think Sarah Sawyer might have sensibly been there. Lots of women in this era trained in Scotland and Ireland – like ACD Sarah is an English doctor trained in Scotland. Also from that excellent [PhD](http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/43950.pdf) I mentioned lots of women in medicine worked ways other than full time for the full year and so their contributions were underestimated. (as the mother of a baby…. this depressingly rings a lot of bells). Also, middle class women didn’t really play orchestral instruments (or middle class men for that matter – Sherlock was odd playing the violin), so the clarinet joke didn’t quite fit. 
> 
> Thank you to Ariane DeVere for her wonderful [transcripts](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/45111.html?page=1) which I used for the dialogue between John and Sarah.


	5. A Good Stakeout

John felt confident in her newly confirmed role. She would help, she would be a friend; but she would not be consumed by Sherlock, she would not be consumed by cases (“A help, a friend, that’s all... A help, a friend, that’s enough…”). Repeating this as a mantra in her head she watched Sherlock’s quick steps that were still slightly stiff. Her thoughts were distracted by worry – were there lingering effects of the poison? Was Sherlock recovering? She thought, involuntarily of her own palsy after the tropical fevers. When she had first met Sherlock the shaking would take her hands and make her feel so weak. She couldn’t work, she couldn’t concentrate. When had been the last time her hands had shaken? John couldn’t even remember.

 

Somehow, in her life with new adventurous excitement she had stopped trying so desperately to resign herself to the existence of an invalid and instead, had recovered. Sherlock had given her so much. John knew she had to be content with that, she had to be a whole and independent person and let Sherlock be her mad self. She had to maintain this step back away from her orbit.

 

“We have the method, but neither perpetrator nor motivation.” Sherlock was pacing the room, thinking aloud. John’s presence apparently only incidental, but she remembered the time that Sherlock had described her as vital to the process and decided that this counted as helping with cases and sat tight. “What have I missed? Now we have the method what is the next step”

 

“A strange new poison, does that help?”

 

“No John, don’t be an idiot.” Sherlock said, but then continued “Well, our murderer would need to have access to the poison – it is a new poison – probably from abroad, I think a biological agent is most probable, so we need someone who has travelled, perhaps or knows someone who has. Which is yet another point in Billy’s favour, just listen to his accent – I doubt he has ever been south of Vauxhall.”

 

“Um… perhaps we should re-examine the scene?” attempted John.

 

“Ah, yes – you are better than the skull. That isn’t at all what we should do, but we do need to re-examine the facts. I think someone has been keeping things from us. I want to talk again to those women who brought the case. I don’t think they were being straight with us.”

 

John was unsure “They seemed to do nothing but talk, what on earth could they have been hiding?”

 

“Precisely what we need to find out. I think we should head there first and then onto the theatre. There is nothing like an unannounced visit for seeing through a situation.”

 

As soon as John had forced some luncheon down Sherlock “ _You did nearly die this morning, there is a difference between a nagging and a reasonable, medically sound behaviour insisted upon by your doctor_ ” they left for the East End. John noticed that despite Sherlock’s bravado she was moving a bit stiffly, still not completely recovered from the morning she climbed down from the cab without her usual flourish or grace. But now on the case (and delighting in the drama, as ever), she obviously mustered her resolve and walked lightly and quickly down to the front door where it opened directly onto the street. She rapped on the door, hard with the handle of her ornate, masculine walking stick.

 

The sight made even Sherlock pause. Miss Astley opened the door to them revealing the activities in the front room. The boy, Cyril, was writing out Latin declensions onto a slate and Miss Astley had clearly been supervising. A perfectly ordinary sight for a boy able to win a scholarship. What made the scene extraordinary was Nancy. Her hair slicked back tight against her head and a cigarette dangling idly in her hand(What on earth was this sudden influx of women who smoked in her life, thought John – it brought back entirely too many memories). She wore an ancient pair of moleskin trousers, a man’s shirt and an equally tatty waistcoat. She looked exactly like any working man at the end of his day and not at all like one would expect from an apparently reasonable spinster.

 

“Ah” Nancy said as she opened the door “I thought you were Flo, she forgot her keys this morning. We weren’t expecting you.” Apparently unperturbed by their sudden arrival she continued “Come in. Cyril – run and fetch Billy. Now they’ve let him out on bail I’m sure Miss Holmes will want him too.”

 

John wasn’t quite sure what to think. Miss Astley was so completely relaxed. She was dressed in such an extraordinary manner and made no move to explain herself or dissemble. But she clearly wasn’t stupid and she caught John’s look.

 

“Yes, Miss Watson, trousers.” She said in a matter of fact way “People around here have a bit too much on their plates to worry about how my limbs are covered and as you noticed the other day I do own a few skirts.”

 

Nancy’s knowing look in her direction made John flinch. She had seen that Nancy and Flo were not typical friends and were probably like her, but what she saw here scared her. They weren’t merely having an affair, there was nothing girlish about this. Seeing Nancy so completely untroubled, John understood that she wasn’t seeing a performance – just everyday life. Nancy was completely unlike the women in tights at a pantomime for the audience to laugh at (and to leer at). These women had jobs to do and children to raise and apparently, trousers to wear. The thought that this was a family, quietly living their lives in front of her, felt extraordinary.

 

John had once attended a lecture on inversion (though women were not meant to attend, considering the subject matter). She had crept into the back of the crowded lecture theatre, five minutes after Havelock Ellis had begun to speak. Known for his unconventional household and modern views she had been so excited by the concept of his existence.

 

Buoyed up on the idea of a medical man about to talk of her own self without talk of damnation or disease. But his talk had been harrowing, she felt completely unrepresented by childish, narcissistic inverts he described. Apparently she wanted to reproduce herself and channel her desires back down the generation as some sort of contagion. The girls that John had liked and touched and laughed with bore no relation to the unhappiness painted in the lecture. In this drab little house in Bethnal Green John saw something she never at before. Though these women were not much older than her they seemed to have arrived into their own lives in a way she hadn’t.

 

John remembered the moment she had first been kissed, how her entire view of the world had been so marvellously transformed. She felt like she had been re-imagined as though the possibilities open to her had completely changed. Similarly, when she got the position with the Women’s Federation to go to the Transvaal her whole life had felt opened up, changed and completely different than it had ever been before. Those two changes in her life that had opened up whole ways of being. In front of her now she saw the possibility of a third moment – another new way of living that may exist.

 

The idea wouldn’t solidify, she couldn’t even quite parse what she was seeing. She was completely unsure and yet, the sight of the household before her felt revelatory. Genuinely unsure what on earth it could ever mean for her own life, John drank in every part of the scene in front of her – trying desperately to collect details to understand where this flash of new opportunity might lead. She wondered if this was how Sherlock felt all the time – alert to every moment, drinking in every, seemingly inconsequential, detail.

 

Surprisingly for Sherlock, for once she seemed completely oblivious of the storm inside John and apparently unaffected by Nancy’s appearance. Sherlock returned them to the matter at hand.

 

“Miss Astley, I don’t think you were completely forthcoming last time we were here”

 

Nancy looked a bit awkwardly at them, checking to see that Cyril was still out on his errand. She turned back to Sherlock “No, Miss Holmes, there were a couple of things we couldn’t mention.”

 

“Why on earth employ a consulting detective and then play pretend?” Sherlock snapped

 

“That really wasn’t what we were aiming for.” Nancy looked beyond the end of her rope. She ran her hands to smooth down her slicked back hair in what was clearly a habitual gesture. She sat down on the chair with the antimacassar covered in grease marks, confirming even to John’s rather poor deductive eye that this was more usual attire for Nancy that what they had seen on their previous visit. It seemed perhaps, they were seeing through the artifice constructed for them the previous day.

 

Nancy looked at John and Sherlock standing across from her. “Sit down, both of you. It’s a bit complicated, well not really, but perhaps worth being careful about. Poor Brenda… it changes what you need to be careful about, when someone is dead.” Looking around to check that Cyril was safely out of earshot on his errand, she added, looking completely crushed “No reputation to worry about anymore…”

 

John could anticipate Sherlock saying something excessively cutting and tried to get in their first “You knew Brenda well, then?”

 

“Not like that, Flo and I have lived together for donkey’s years. But Brenda certainly had… inclinations. She’s been mad keen on this woman for ages. But this woman, gosh she’s not always well, half mad her family say. But despite that, Brenda’s friend is always off the foreign places, she had been away for a year in Abyssinia and Egypt, she just got back last month.” Adding in a conspiratorial tone “I think she and Brenda had been rather enjoying becoming re-acquainted”

 

John felt flummoxed, who was this woman to look through her and know immediately that veiled half references were not necessary because John was cut of the same cloth as them? How could she be so suddenly transparent? Though it seemed to be clear, on the subject of the case, John thought it sounded like perhaps they had found their perpetrator. A lover’s squabble turned sour perhaps? But rather than pressing the subject, Sherlock looking anxious stood back up and said “You have been most helpful, Miss Astley. We have to go now. I think there will be another death at the theatre tonight if we are not careful.”

 

“Sorry about your friend, Miss Astley” added John, thinking that one of them ought to stick with manners.

 

“Have Billy meet us there. I do need to speak with him as well. Come on, John!” Sherlock said issuing demands at a frantic pace.

 

John was still fixing her hat as she followed Sherlock who was striding ahead. Her stiff gait forgotten with the chase ahead.

 

“What on earth is going on?” asked John

 

“Quiet! I’m thinking. We have to hurry” Sherlock continued as fast as she could with John stretching out her stride to match her taller friend. For all that she walked fast, Sherlock seemed to be able to dodge pedestrians and also exist inside her own mind. Her hands moving in front of her as though acting in an imaginary play. Mostly small movements that were hardly noticeable to the idle passer-by, perhaps as though miming organising a dresser but occasionally she would flare into animated motion and almost hit John on the side of the head.

 

It seemed that Cyril had done his job well and most of the way there they were caught up by Billy who was winded after running most of the mile from Nancy’s house.

 

“Miss Holmes and Miss Watson?” Billy asked, panting for breath

 

“Dr Watson. And yes, obviously. Who else would we be? Quiet, I need to think” Replied Sherlock

 

John was flattered that Sherlock always seemed to want to correct people to hr correct title but she never quite understood why. Perhaps it gave Sherlock a more official status by association? John knew that Sherlock was away in her own thoughts and it fell to John to make any conversation (were there to be any). She had found that this was where her own role tended to fall. John was hardly a usual sort of a woman, but next to Sherlock she seemed calm and could often persuade a witness to open up.

 

“Mr Mann, is that right?” asked John

 

“Just Billy is fine”

 

“Have you worked at the theatre long?”

 

“I’ve been working in theatres in general for ever. I’m not one for the stage myself, but theatres as a whole are a good place for me. There are male impersonators, acrobats, strong men I’m rarely the most striking person there, so I’ve always found it fits me well.”

 

John had met many dark skinned men in the Transvaal, but never one with such a broad Cockney accent. She found that she liked Billy immediately, he was open and seemed to be willing to cut straight to the point. “So losing your job is a problem than being accused of a crime”

 

“I can’t believe that that will stick; she died in front of everyone when I was on the other side of the hall. But it is skilled work, running the lights, and I’ve spent years working up to it. I don’t want to earn half as much in casual dock work. Yes, I need to clear my name”

 

Sherlock seemingly coming back to herself turned towards the two of them and said “Skilled work. Yes, it can be remarkably difficult to factor in the uselessness of the average person. How many people in the theatre can operate the lights?”

 

“Not that many: the band leader in the pit can, because there are a load of lights near him; the lad who works for me sometimes, Tim; Mr Tregannis can as well, though I don’t think he has in years”

 

“Just as I thought, we need to pay Mr Tregannis a visit”

 

When they arrived at the theatre there was no sight of any of the management. Perhaps arranging things for his sister, Morty Tregannis was not in the building. It surprised John that without any prompting, Sherlock started to explain “It was Morty Tregannis, I’m still not quite sure of motive, but it was definitely him. He knew that they were the only ones using that box and he knew how to access the lights safely. He added the poison to start to smoke over the hot lights with the intention of poisoning his siblings. I actually don’t think he intended to kill his sister. His is not the type for the kind of passionate motives that lead to killings within a family. He wouldn’t get that roused by anything – look at the fastidiousness of his book-keeping. Think of his collar. No, Morty Tregannis was aiming to scare them… perhaps to change their minds? There is insufficient evidence as yet to be sure of his motivation.”

 

Sherlock began to pace to and fro in the quiet of the stage wings. The setting was eerie there were a few small windows open high up in the Gods, but no lighting and hardly anyone there this early before the first evening performance. Sherlock continued “Did you notice his cuffs? Of course not, you really must learn to observe, John”

 

John was mildly anxious at the use of her familiar name in public, but Billy didn’t even seem to notice.

 

“He works in a busy, hot environment. But his shirt collar and cuffs had been changed recently every time we saw him. To be that pristine he must be changing them several times a day. He’s nervous and worried. But as well as that, he’s fussy. He doesn’t work with the lights anymore; he doesn’t go near grease paint. He absolutely would not want a messy (or even a clean) sort of a death. He wanted to make his siblings sacred and possibly unwell. Though I have yet to determine the ultimate purpose. Intimidation, possibly?

 

“The problem remains though of how to prove it. The police are unlikely to listen, we need proof. He will have to return to collect the remains of the poison. He’ll have been busy, but as I said he is fastidious. The theatre has been dark since Brenda’s death and for once being sensible the Met have insisted that in remain so for two more night to allow and investigation. He won’t leave the residue there to carry on poisoning people he has a business to run (and as we have established he is careful in his bookkeeping), and he won’t throw it away (too disorderly for him). He’ll put it back where ever it came from. Somewhere safe. Once we know where it is we can inform the met and case solved. I do love a good stake out!”

 

………………………………………………………

 

With Billy safely installed up high towards the top of the theatre with the main lights, Sherlock sat down next to John at the foot of the stage near where the side lights were. They sat silently in the gloom of the unlit theatre both occupied with their thoughts. Sherlock had deduced it most likely that Morty Tregannis had only placed poison on the lights near the box, but it was possible he had wanted to whole theatre disturbed (indeed the initial complaint about Billy was of the audience as a whole being fearful) so whilst it was a wise precaution to have Billy up in the Gods, she was sure that she and John were more likely to see any action that followed.

 

Involuntarily, Sherlock shivered remembering how own experience with the strange new poison. The morning felt like a very distant memory at this moment, warm in the theatre and next to John and with the prospect of excitement. She had meant what she’d said to John, it hadn’t been deliberate - her close brush with disaster were never exactly deliberate. She had merely prioritised the case at hand rather than her own health.

 

Ruthlessly honest with herself as ever, Sherlock acknowledged that her recklessness was not always born out of a single minded focus on the work. Flirting with danger made her feel alive and risking her own life at least broke the tedium of managing. It wasn’t that she wanted to die, but occasionally she couldn’t stop herself from thinking that at least dying wouldn’t be boring. And last night, with her chromatography coming up blank and her frustration mounting she had begun to feel rather careless. She didn’t want to be held back, she had wanted to be able to go to a proper laboratory in the middle of the night - better equipment would have helped. She wanted to be able to tell the police her deductions and have them listen.

 

The frustration was toxic even now and it threatened to build back up within her. But then John shifted beside her and she remembered they had made progress with the case and there was the prospect of more action. She was no longer stewing in her own thoughts as she had been in the early hours of the morning, She had watched the sun begin to rise with time was running out, she had limited time and she needed to make her mark before the police came to a conclusion.

 

But now, in a rather different sort of frustration, Sherlock realised that she was almost more pleased to know that John remained beside her than she was at the prospect of the stake out. She had always valued the action that would follow – the possibility of discovery and resolution. But the new found pleasure of quiet companionship was unexpected. She thought that John appreciated it too. Next to her, she could feel John’s quiet even breaths suggesting that she too was returning to a better humour. She still didn’t quite understand their friendship (though she was loathed to admit it) John did genuinely seem to like cases.

 

Sherlock thought that John’s anger that morning had been at least 60% attributable to fear for Sherlock’s own safety (a conclusion she could scarce believe, but even on reconsideration she had to maintain it as based on solid evidence). During her recovery that morning she had felt unmoored. Adrift in the sea of agony raging inside her own body, she had decided she couldn’t bear to do without John and so she had attempted something she couldn’t ever remember having made a sincere try at before: an apology. She now genuinely wanted it to have worked. She actually wanted John to forgive her, she really hadn’t wanted to make John fearful – when John was bold and proud and intrepid Sherlock could see her shine (so unlike the externally meek but internally rage filled woman that Sherlock had first met).

 

Sherlock was uncertain as to whether she had succeeded. John had been cool, but she was still here. In the gloom of the empty, unlit theatre Sherlock looked at her friend closely. As though seeing her fresh. Sherlock found that allowing herself to look was vital, she needed to make unbiased deductions. She just observed John for the practice. But rather than adding to her mental catalogue, today she couldn’t help but voice her findings.

 

“You didn’t just walk this morning” said Sherlock in a harsh and quick half whisper. “Look at your blouse, you had tea and not at home. You wiped Regent’s Park off your boots on an unfamiliar boot scraper (one of the Coalbrookdale ones with the scalloped edge if I am not mistaken – look at the repeated pattern there at the heel). You were given tea but you she wasn’t someone you were already acquainted with – you have a new card in an obviously feminine style tucked in your pocket. You tried to fix your appearance as well, your hair was re-done without a mirror, so someone you wanted to impress but in a location where you had no access to mirrors. An institution perhaps. You were nervous, you rubbed at the cuff of your sleeve as you always do when you’re anxious.”

 

Here Sherlock paused for breath and looking over John she was momentarily lost. John had been anxious to impress and had obviously achieved it. Beyond the simple evidence of the calling card, John’s demeanour spoke loudly as to her success. Never one to tolerate self-indulgence, ruthlessly, Sherlock continued to list what she saw. “You met a women you impressed her and returned home. Though you are consenting to help with the case you are watching the progress of the sun through the upper windows. You’re in a rush – so keen to be out of my company?” Sherlock could hear her own tone becoming more harsh and louder. She spoke more and more quickly she could hear her own inexplicable anger in her voice, she hadn’t even been aware that she was cross she had been so focussed on the details of John’s morning.

 

John thought it best to step in before Sherlock got too much further “I got a job, in fact” replied John “Are we alright to talk? Will we startle Tregannis, when he comes?”

 

“Never mind that. A job!” Aware that John was being quite sensible she still couldn’t leave it be. Sherlock did modulate her tone though and returned to her typical harsh whisper.

 

“Yes, as a women’s surgical ward houseman. It will just be checking on post-operative progress and taking temperatures and the like, rather routine, but it’s a start.” Said John, looking rather pleased at the prospect.

 

“But what about the work, our work?” Sherlock felt completely blindsided. But unsure of herself (in a way she was becoming distressingly used to) she had thought John had accepted her apology. What on earth did this mean? Aware that she couldn’t take time for distractions at the moment and that she already allowing stupid sentiment to get the better of her, Sherlock cut off further thought “Silent, John, I think I hear something”

 

John stilled and listened carefully, but after five minutes Sherlock’s pretence was well and truly dead. No one emerged and looking over at Sherlock once more, John continued where she had left off “I need something Sherlock, plus she seemed nice”

 

“She?” This was getting out of hand

 

“The job, I meant” John seemed slightly flustered

 

Sherlock was aware that this sort of thing was not her area. She had been able to deduce some of John’s past. But this topic was so undiscussed. Not just between the two of them, but in general. Where could Sherlock amass the data to make reasonable conclusions? Sherlock’s mind was screeching ahead, she knew it had been a long time since John had had an affair (though she had made some deductions on the nature of John’s previous liaisons Sherlock could not be sure at all of the details. Not that she cared, she reminded herself), but she saw John’s face and could tell that her mind was not at all on the job. What had this woman done to John?

 

“Dr Sawyer runs the ward and I’ll be filling in for her when she has teaching days over at Hunter St.” finished John

 

Sherlock knew she couldn’t possibly dignify this with a response, she glared out into the dim, hush.

 

“Don’t be like that, Sherlock. It’s two days a week.”

 

Not in the least bit mollified, Sherlock continued to stare straight ahead. The silence was awkward this time. Unlike their comfortable companionship when they had first sat down.

 

Sighing, John added “I need this Sherlock. I spent the last decade working at it. If I am well enough I must do it”

 

Cutting off further discussion Sherlock only added in a flat voice “I see.”

 

Putting aside John and her distracting presence, and her distracting job and this stupid distracting woman. Sherlock focussed on the door. Intent, she strained to hear any sound. They returned to silence and sat watching the state for another long hour. Slowly, the silence moved from awkward back towards its traditional state of companionable.

 

Sherlock roused herself, realising the lateness of the hour (as John yawned with increasing frequency). “He won’t come tonight now. He needs to be at home, then they’ll be a servant who’ll see his comings and goings. Now, now he’ll leave it until tomorrow and when his movements can be unobserved.” Standing quickly and shaking out her long legs, Sherlock added (with only a slightly acid tone) “Clearly we need to let you rest for your paid employment.”

 

………………………………………..

 

John was completely aware that Sherlock would have a strop about her work both because Sherlock adored a good sulk and also because Sherlock couldn’t bare it when she couldn’t join in with something that interested her. And John could tell, part of Sherlock’s insistence on using John’s title and her preoccupation with her status as a Doctor was in part due to Sherlock’s fascination. So she tried not to take her friend too seriously on the subject. John knew that Sherlock would hate for her to describe it this way, but the truth was that Sherlock was not fond of change and for all her beautiful, lightening quick mind she needed a little bit of time to get used to things and so once she had completed her sulk would move on to new thoughts and it would be forgotten.

 

As they returned to Baker Street, John felt exhausted. She felt as though her entire skeleton had been replaced with lead, she had last felt this bone tired when she was first recovering, but today it was through honest exertion. She had walked a long way and sat in cramped conditions for a long time, the knowledge that a good night’s sleep would put her to rights made John feel rather delighted. She really was well enough to work – she could tire herself out and recover.

 

Looking over at Sherlock, John saw that she was even more tired. Her collapse of the morning leaving her face pale and her expression drawn. They hadn’t had a chance for any supper and Sherlock had expelled anything in her stomach that morning. “Tea and toast, I think” said John. Whistling, she lit the stove and set the kettle to boil. She prepared the bread (only a little stale, it would make lovely toast) and fetched butter and jam (a present from Mrs Hudson after she had last visited her sister). Sherlock was very quiet and sat on the chaise apparently thinking. John left her to her thoughts and carried on with her preparations. She felt remarkably content. This would work, she could make it work. She could be Sherlock’s friend and help with her cases but maintain her own life. It was just a matter of not allowing herself to get to embroiled.

 

She passed Sherlock a piece of toast with a very large helping of jam (they really hadn’t had enough to eat so far today) and unusually, Sherlock seemed to notice “Thank you” she said, absent mindedly but then continued, with more focus on John (perhaps it hadn’t been the case that occupied her thoughts). “John. I did mean it. I don’t want to readjust out housing arrangements. I can see that you were thinking it. You don’t need to leave.” Abrupt as ever, she continued “I am not planning to commit suicide.”

 

John choked on a sip of her tea. Considered for a second as she wondered how on earth to respond to that statement she replaced her cup in its saucer and as ever defaulted to a quip “Well, we do aim to decrease rather than increase London crime. Don’t we?”

 

Sherlock smirked and clearly considering the conversation closed picked up her violin bow and started to tension the hairs and picked up her rosin.

 

“Try to get some sleep tonight Sherlock, regardless of your intent. You did nearly die this morning”

 

John enjoyed her tea and watched Sherlock. She played Bach (even John could spot the fast, ornamented style). In between movements she ate a large volume of toast and after 40 minutes put down her violin. Gently cleaning the body and reverently reducing the tension on the bow she put it all away. “In the morning then, John. We shall go back to the theatre”

 

“Good night”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Havelock Ellis was a doctor who wrote on sexuality, he used the term inverts to describe gay people and is credited with inventing the term homosexuality (though he wasn’t keen on the word). He was relatively revolutionary at the time as someone comparatively understanding towards gay people. His wife was an out lesbian and certainly, some contemporary queer people liked his ideas. Radcliffe Hall described herself as an invert and used a lot of his theories in The Well of Loneliness. But I’m unsure that John would be so keen on him – I think she doesn’t see herself in the intergenerational relationships that Ellis thought were so much part of gay-ness. I also don’t think that John has quite the same sort of self-loathing as Radcliffe Hall. 
> 
>  
> 
> I got side-tracked and researched cast iron boot scrapers (writing deductions is hard!). They were everywhere in the Victorian era – with all the muck from horses on the roads you needed to scrape your boots a lot. They were melted down for scrap in the Second World War and now you can buy them overpriced and reclaimed. The [Coalbrookdale](https://www.ukaa.com/coalbrookdale_cast_iron_boot_scraper_5400) ones have a pretty scalloped edge which I’m sure Sherlock would have catalogued.
> 
>  
> 
> “I am not going to commit suicide” John’s rather off colour joke in response to this reflects the fact that suicide was not de-criminalised until 1961. This resulted in the incarceration of suicidal people, I cannot imagine a worse thing. But Doctors are known for their black sense of humour… The gaoling of people for suicide features in a really interesting was in Sarah Water’ spectacular reverse chronology Second World War story – Night Watch. Well worth a read.


	6. The Limits of Self-Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all have our limits...

The next day of the stakeout proved rather more fruitful. Sherlock was dressed in dark clothes to better blend into the gloom of the stage with John sitting next to her. Once again, Billy was up above in the highest reaches of the theatre with the main lights, tasked with looking out over the entrance hall and only periodically checking back in on the theatre itself.

 

They sat close together as they had before – below the profile of the stage and seats so that they wouldn’t be immediately visible to anyone entering the theatre. In was cool in the auditorium – the press of bodies absent and the stifling hot lights unlit. Though it was summer, John wished a little for the worsted of winter. But contented herself to wait. Next to her, she could feel Sherlock fidgeting, her light fame ill-adapted for summer chill. Forgetting herself, she acted just as she had countless times, with friends waiting for hockey game or with a young nurse at Mafeking, John slipped her arms around Sherlock’s shoulders and pulled her to her side for warmth. It was intended as a move of friendship, for all her worrying, in that moment John only thought of a chilly friend. But by the immediate tenseness in Sherlock’s shoulders, that clearly wasn’t what she had expected.

 

“Sorry” said John, removing her arm “I didn’t mean to startle you – you looked cold”

 

“It’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting it.” Said Sherlock, a little primly (a tone of voice John had rarely heard). “I thought you were angry, after yesterday”.

 

“I can’t stay cross with you, Sherlock” said John. Something about the dark, the closeness made her so much more frank than she had really intended. Tucking her arm around her own knees John looked out, straight ahead. A little embarrassed by her own forthrightness.

 

They fell into silence for a few minutes, until Sherlock said “Well I am cold.”

 

John knew that Sherlock hated to admit to any weakness. She clung to her independence like a weapon in battle. There was something slightly touching about her willingness to do so, when only John could observe. Without questioning anything further, reluctant to disturb the quiet atmosphere. John reached out her arm again. She pulled Sherlock close against her, sharing their warmth.

 

Another half hour passed, much more pleasantly. Their silence companionable both of them in their own thoughts (as they often were opposite each other at 221B). John relaxed initially, but started to feel inconveniently happy to be pressed against Sherlock. John was always aware of her own mind – her thoughts, opinions and aims but at times such as this, she felt forcibly reminded that she had a body. Now, she could feel her skin flush, rather pleased for the cover of darkness. Despite her resolutions to move on, she could feel a blush rising. Her cheeks warm, her body preparing itself. She could feel every inch of herself – that rather glorious feeling of a body coming alive. As each part of her woke up and let her brain knew that it was there – her small breasts pressed against her chemise, the curve of her waist was there right against her skirt waistband. Her drawers touched her thighs. The skin on her arms raised in goose bumps. A tightening in her groin. She could feel the blood pumping around her body – awakening, stirring, pulsing. As she shifted slightly, she could feel that she had become wet. An ache between her legs that longed to be touched.

 

She noticed that her left arm, the one that was around Sherlock, was pressed along the edge of her friends bust. Sherlock was in her hunting clothes – not the impressive armour of the day before. No tight lacing, or walking sticks today. Only a hunting jacket over a thin chemise. There was no whale bone between them. The thought, once it occurred in John’s brain seemed impossible to remove. In contrast to their first attempt at closeness, Sherlock seemed quite relaxed in her company and John became more and more tense. Not through discomfort – but suspense.

 

Sherlock breathed deeply and John could feel the swell of her breast against her arm. Though thin, Sherlock was not as flat chested as John, and she could feel quite clearly the curve and softness compared to Sherlock’s ribs. God it had been an age.

 

John attempted to remind herself - They were on a stakeout, they needed to concentrate.

 

Sherlock turned her head to John. They were so close. It occurred to John that she wouldn’t even need to lean to kiss her. “John, I…” Sherlock cut herself off, momentarily, then resumed speaking, very fast and low, aware of the hushed atmosphere of the empty theatre “The work is the most important thing to me. But it is strange. You are part of the work”

 

Sherlock looked over at John. Clearly expecting her to divine great import from the statement

 

“Yes, good. I want to help with the work” John tried, in reply. Attempting to force her mind out of her own body and onto Sherlock’s topic of conversation.

 

“Oh Good God John, don’t be dense” John was rather relieved to have the reappearance of Sherlock’s typical shortness.

 

“I mean it. I think of you even when I’m working (it’s most distracting) but I also think of you when I’m making decisions. I want to immerse myself I the work – it is endlessly fascinating and probably a better alternative for mental stimulation than the cocaine” Her tone continued to be rushed and low. Fast, now that she was started so characteristically decisive. No hesitancy at all. “I’m leaving beside the crucial point. The argument is, John, that you help, with the work”

 

“Thank you” said John, still unsure where Sherlock was heading.

 

“But then you distract me from it too.” Sherlock seemed torn. She looked again at John and then shuffled imperceptibly closer.

 

Hope began to rise up in John. What was Sherlock suggesting? The work was the important thing - that was fine. John understood that. In the dark, finally it seemed like maybe they understood each other. Maye they could have something together, something casual – to allow them both their work. Obviously, that was what John wanted. It would be best to keep anything casual, she told herself quite forcibly that only occasional, only casual was best. Aside from her internal machinations, right now, this minute. John just wanted something. Her skin sang out to be touched. Her body alive and responsive and turned on to Sherlock’s presence.

 

John licked her lips “Do you think we’ll be waiting much longer?” That wasn’t quite what she had intended. But now it was out, it was all she wanted to know. How long cold this moment last?

 

“Yes, a while.” Sherlock took in a deep breath, as though preparing her arguments and then plunged on “John, I know you are uninterested in, well, me. I have seen you preparing to leave. But I have several arguments to persuade you of the utility of our potential” She got out her ever gesturing hands, apparently ready to start counting off items on her list. Her enthusiasm for the subject mounting as it always did when she reached a conclusion – over a deduction at a crime scene or a breakthrough in the phrasing of Bach.

 

As ever, the sight of Sherlock caught up in her own cleverness was John’s favourite sight in the world. No longer content to observe, John beat her to any longer list. Leaning forward, she kissed her. Uncaring of the problems that her actions may cause. There was only so much self-restraint John could muster. And as it turned out, this was her limit.

 

Sherlock’s excitement was infectious. They kissed, it felt illicit and wonderful. John knew all the reasons that this was a bad idea – they risked disgrace, never mind the possibility of losing their little household to heartache and public disapproval. John was completely unsure. She thought that perhaps Sherlock’s strange justification was to suggest this only as an adjunct to her work – the occasional one off. Though, for all her affairs, John had never heard reasoning quite like that. Sherlock was unusual though and if she meant to engage in something casual enough to keep them both safe and thought it wold help her work, then John did not have the self-control to attempt to dissuade her. But even at this first kiss, John as in to deep. She felt transported. This was really happening.

 

Sherlock had frozen momentarily as their lips touched, just as she had when John had put her arm around her friend. But, in exactly the same way, after a moment to re-group she seemed delighted. Breaking off she said “Yes, this is exactly it” as her mouth seemed occupied for the moment, John bent to kiss along the line of her jaw “God, John, you aren’t that luminous yourself” a particularly well timed kiss at Sherlock’s pulse made her gasp – rather undermining her point “Oh…. But as a conductor of light… you’re incredible”.

Rather used to Sherlock’s odd compliments, John only kissed her harder. Coming back to her full lips now that she had apparently finished talking for the moment. John tucked Sherlock’s small moment of illogic away to hoard for later. Sherlock kissed as she did everything else – passionately and full of focus. Disconcertingly her eyes remained open, even at such close quarters, focussing intently on John. Sherlock kissed as though she were about to take an exam on the subject, her entire intellect concentrating on the every variable, as though calculating the formula for the perfect touch. John wondered if she should feel upset to be so obviously an object of study, but as ever she found Sherlock’s focus mesmerising. All her gorgeous intellect focussed on John was intoxicating.

 

John reached out her other arm to wrap around Sherlock as well. Stroking up her back to the nape of her neck and her curly hair full of an impossibly large number of pins (John had watched Sherlock stab each one, vindictively, into her hair that very morning).

 

“John” breathed Sherlock “Oh, John, more”

 

John smiled, Sherlock was never one to do anything by halves. Aware that they needed to be able to act at any moment, John made no move to remove Sherlock’s clothes, but instead just reached down to touch her ankle. (Perhaps this was an exercise I sharpening focus? She felt so confused).

 

Sherlock’s stockings were light, silk summer weight things. They felt slippery and terribly sensuous to John. She stroked up Sherlock’s leg’s “Is this what you mean by more?”

 

Sherlock intent focus seemed to be stuttering and she stretched her neck out, breathing hard. Her eyes finally fluttering closed “Yes” the only word Sherlock said.

 

Her skirt in a hunting fashion, was simple, with only a single layer of petticoat underneath. A strange choice for the city summer – but an eminently practical one – clothes designed for riding could stand up to their adventures and the well-tailored riding jacket clung to Sherlock like a second skin. Sherlock lay back down on the boarded floor, pulling John alongside her. They lay next to each other on their sides. Sherlock’s long, left leg bend up at the knee so that John could continue to stroke her calf. Their faces only an inch apart.

 

There was a moment of hush, for a moment the just looked at each other, breath coming in pants. “Is this alright, Sherlock” asked John, her voice hushed.

 

Even in the breathy pants of her voice, Sherlock sounded so exactly like herself that John felt rather reassured as she said “John, do not make me repeat the obvious – Yes! This is absolutely alright!”

 

Sherlock summer stocking ended at the knee and then her lawn, lace fringed knickers were loose. John could reach up along her thigh. The skin warm now and her leg trembling slightly. John felt overwhelmed by want, completely taken by the need to touch and be touched. She must have been telegraphing her desires – Sherlock reached up under John’s simple ankle length skirt and under her own underwear. Sherlock’s long fingers trailed up John’s thighs and it was only her calloused finger tips that could convince John that this was not just a dream.

 

They shifted, allowing each other better access and pressed close together from shoulder to hip. Their skirts up around their waists John rolled over on top of Sherlock. Their summer underwear was so thin that as she pressed herself against Sherlock she could feel her heat against her thigh. Sherlock bent up her knees and they were pressed each against the other. The thin, almost transparent cotton of their underclothes no barrier to sensation. John could feel against her thigh where Sherlock was wet and at the thought ground her hips down into Sherlock’s lean thigh.

 

In answer, Sherlock shifted back up against her. Soon they found a rhythm, both of them moving their hips against each other – grinding hard together. John remembered as a teenager having sex just exactly like this – the thrill had always been amazing, but somehow here with all their clothes on with Sherlock staring up at her, John felt more naked than she ever had in her life.

 

Sherlock was looking at her just as intently as any crime scene – all of her brilliant focus on John. In that moment, John could hardly manage her own emotions, she leant forward, kissing Sherlock. Her breath short enough to make the kisses messy but hard. Their hips moving in concert now. Sherlock pushing back against her just as hard as John was grinding down. Her knickers wet against Sherlock’s leg. This was going to be enough – the pressure, the heat the feeling of Sherlock stretched out underneath her – she wasn’t going to need anything more than the roll of her hips and the feel of Sherlock’s thigh and this fantastic movement (almost as though they were skin to skin through such a fine layer as their wet underwear). John could feel herself rising – her body so turned on before they had even started. Sherlock’s hands were around her – one around the back of her neck holding her close and the other on her arse. Holding them tight together where they were both so wet and desperate. God, it had been an age since John had a woman between her legs, and Sherlock was incredible – gorgeous, strong and just as keen as John.

 

John had the perfect rhythm for herself – jerking against Sherlock her breath short whilst Sherlock’s coming in small cries. John could feel herself climbing – sensation rising, her whole body alive. The contractions started to take her, her toes curling and her fingers tight against Sherlock’s sides. She shuddered and slowed, feeling her womb contract hard, twitching her cunt against Sherlock’s leg. John slumped against Sherlock lying on top of her, still pressed together. Sherlock had slowed her own movements to watch John but there were still small involuntary twitches of her hips.

 

“Don’t stop, Sherlock” whispered John. She didn’t move away, only shifted her weight slightly. John reached her hand up all the way under Sherlock’s knickers. She was wet and blood hot and open, not wanting to delay or tease – knowing that Sherlock was as close as she was, she found her clitoris. Moving the index and middle finger of her left hand around in quick circles. Sherlock’s eyes finally fell closed.

 

“Yes, exactly like that…. Just exactly…. Oh”

 

She was tense all over and John, knowing that desperation replied “It’s fine, Sherlock. Relax and let it happen”

 

Sherlock left her desperate shifting and stretched out her beautiful long neck, her eyes still closed. John drank in the sight of her, moving her fingers, steadily, relentlessly. Sherlock took in a deep breath and held it for a moment and then she was there. She cried out, wordlessly her whole body shaking. Her cunt contracting against John’s fingers. John held her fingers softly against Sherlock, gentling her through it (unsure yet as to how she liked it).

 

“No. Don’t stop – it’s so close” said Sherlock

 

So John resumed her touch – Sherlock looked drunk, blissed out and riding high. Not a minute later, her second orgasm took her apart.

 

Sherlock lay like a wet rag on the hard floor. After a minute, she opened her eyes and for a moment touched John’s cheek with such gentleness. Blinking away the lassitude of her post-organismic haze she smiled, briefly, brilliantly.

 

John had no idea what any of it meant – but surely it couldn’t be a bad thing? Surely they could make something like this work. She would work very hard with whatever restrictions Sherlock needed to experience this again.

 

John sat up a bit “We’d better straighten ourselves out – Billy might come back”

 

“Actually, I heard him a little while ago, I think he made himself scarce. I wouldn’t have credited him with that much sense” said Sherlock, thoughtful.

 

“Fuck” said John

 

“Yes, I imagine that’s what he thought too. Don’t worry, he couldn’t have seen us it’s far too dark”

 

They sat up, close and a bit sticky. Straightening out the clothes and re-fastening stray buttons. Sherlock’s hair was a bit of a mess. John re-pinned a few loose curls while Sherlock tutted at her inability to handle curly hair.

 

It felt genuinely unbelievable, a few minutes later they settled back to watch again. They had just had sex and here they were waiting for a murderer.

 

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done” said John

 

“You tried to invade South Africa!” Sherlock looked a little affronted

 

“Yes, I suppose that’s a good point” John felt elated. Here they were bickering and just minutes ago she had felt Sherlock orgasm against her fingers. A smile emerged on her face – twisting her features it was so broad.

 

Looking at her, Sherlock grinned to. She kissed her once, almost coyly on the cheek and said “No laughing, I think I hear someone”

 

After only three hours of waiting. The door at the back of the theatre to the stage area creaked open.

 

Two people crept forwards. The first, obviously Morty Tregannis. He was unaware that he was followed by a slight woman in early middle age. Sherlock made herself inconspicuous, pressing against the edge of the stage to blur her silhouette. But quite uncharacteristically, rather than continuing with the plan John stood up and said, apparently involuntarily “Oh God, Maggie?”

 

…………………………………………………………..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are few historical notes for this chapter because, as far as I am aware, lesbians have been having sex more or less the same way for a long time.
> 
>  
> 
> But I thought you might like to know – this is what the typical pair of [knickers](http://www.fashion-era.com/images/undergarments/caminicks.jpg) looked like between 1895-1905. As you can see, they had very wide openings at the knees – easily big enough to reach up rather than take off. So you can rest assured that John and Sherlock are having period costume appropriate sex!
> 
>  
> 
> If you ever want more Facades of Respectability (why wouldn't you?) then do feel free to come and say hello on tumblr. I have a [tag](http://girlofthemirrorjohnlock.tumblr.com/tagged/Facades-of-Respectability) for all my Facades posts including research, pictures and updates.


	7. Oh God, Maggie!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the brilliant [Ziggmund](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ziggmund/pseuds/Ziggmund). She did a fantastic job fixing my poor grammar and odd errors. Thank you so much!

“Oh God, Maggie?” said John.

Just the sight of her outline against the light let in from the open door transported John back. She could be no other person than the girl John had known all those years ago. Even in the dark theatre: the way she moved was so completely unchanged, her hair done the same way, and her passion telegraphed in her every gesture. Maggie Benson turned towards John and took in a shuddering breath. In her mind, John was transported back, in an instant, she felt as the memories rising up in her mind were involuntary, it was an assault, and John could not escape the recollection of long months of English summer rain that at the time, had seemed to last forever.

When John was fifteen they had been living temporarily in Canterbury due to some scheme of her father’s involving the idea that gin would be less appealing when there were fields nearby. John hadn’t quite followed his logic, but as ever he seemed to pull himself together enough for some industrious conveyancing and when she had returned from school for the summer, the house had been almost always empty.

John’s mother had been dead for three years and her father had been drinking ever since (they had both drank beforehand too, but the devoted persistence of her father’s insobriety had increased markedly). Before her mother’s death, her parents had fought with each other and John had largely stayed out of the way of both of them. So she had been honestly surprised by the extent of her grief in the confusing year that followed her rapid, unexpected loss. John had been expecting a new sibling, but instead she had to help nurse her mother through two days of worsening puerperal fever, and then lay her body out alongside the tiny remains of her stillborn brother, with only the stern supervision of her aunt.

After the small funeral, John had tried to marshal the remnants of her family as her father had mourned quietly and drank loudly, and her brother got himself into fights. Thankfully, after a shocking winter the same rather difficult aunt had intervened, _“Joan needs the company of women”_. She’d been sent to school, and Harry had headed off to university whilst their father had remembered himself enough to make a little money to support his children’s education. He was charismatic and despite the drink, he managed to keep their household above water financially. By the summer of ’87 Harry was still up at Durham, earning his letters, and home for the summer, and John was completely free to do as she pleased in the modest county town. The turmoil of bereavement seemed finally settled, and John spent a glorious summer lounging out of doors until June became increasingly damp, and finally a wet spell drove her to the variety house.

Unknowingly, she was preceding Miss Nancy Astley by only one year. In eleven short months, in a heatwave, 18 year old Nancy would sit here and have her entire world changed by what she saw. But in this rather more damp summer, it was to be John. She watched the most incredible girl she had ever seen, dressed up as a soldier and singing of love. At the end of the variety performance she couldn’t quite stop herself from loitering at the stage door. She saw the marvellously exciting girl (whose name she never knew), still in her stage costume and smoking a cigarette, laughing with another girl. They looked so close and tight together, John thought that perhaps she recognised the second girl from the acrobatic act. The lack of space between the girls was intoxicating. John returned (slightly breathless in anticipation though she was still not quite sure why) the next day to watch the entire spectacle again, but whilst waiting to buy a ticket, was distracted by a rather different sort of spectacle.

Margaret Benson fell off her penny farthing on the road exactly opposite the entrance to the Canterbury Pavilion (if you are going to fall, you may as well have an appreciative audience). John had never seen a women attempt to ride one before, but she would spend the rest of the summer trying to herself, and laughing and loving Margaret. Her extraordinary family lived in the Archbishop’s palace, but she had rarely seen a family less likely to be religious. There were six children, now half grown up and terrifying in their intensity. Their passions and madness attracted and terrified John. Maggie (and her mother) saw straight through John in a way she wouldn’t experience again until she met Sherlock more than half her life later.

They spent a summer learning together. Margaret was passionate. Her passions sometimes violent and alarming and other times charming – she thrilled and scared John in equal measure. One day she was so angry she destroyed John’s childhood music box. Another, she stayed in bed and wept. The third, she delighted John and taught her everything about her latest fad - from cycling to ancient history. They excavated for fossils together and alongside all of this, John discovered the joys of touch.

Margaret was four years older than her and completely brazen; her whole family so highly strung and used to these exotic, turbulent passions. John’s own family had known unhappiness expressed as quiet, mean desperation, followed by half muttered arguments and then drink. John’s family coped, and when coping got tricky, spent more than was advisable on gin. And if they wept, they only ever did it alone, quietly behind the drawn curtains. But this whole family were so entirely different – their arguments were grandiose statements on justice and the human condition. They could not have been further from the domestic, depressing squabbles of John’s normal life. John felt intoxicated. Margaret’s mother caught her and lectured her on the nature of God and her “swarmings” with girls as an expression of the divine. Both the Archbishop and his eldest son spent the entire summer apparently crying and in bed. Maggie alternated passionate exploration with even more passionate anger. She had never seen a group of people with so many feelings. It terrified her beyond all measure. At the edge of it John was so completely absorbed by them, she could hardly remember who she had been three short months earlier.

But when Maggie, for once in a high mood, pressed her hard against the rocks where they were hunting for ammonites and touched her all over, John decided that she could cope with any level of madness for this feeling. They kissed hard. John felt her whole body waking up and she could feel her breasts against the rough cotton of her chemise. All she wanted was to connect, to feel, to touch -- and she wasn’t even sure where.

In the summer haze, they lay upon the damp grass. Maggie’s hand ran up the hair on John’s leg and she shuddered, so amazed that her body could feel this way: powerful, excited, alive! She wanted everything. Touching Maggie back, she watched her shift towards John’s exploring fingers and her breath quicken. Feeling bold she moved her hand higher to touch Maggie the way she sometimes touched herself under the covers at night. She gently moved her fingers to where she could feel the other girl’s heat. Maggie joined her, and with their clothes half peeled off and lying on the grass they touched each other gently, but increasingly quickly. John couldn’t believe her luck, couldn’t believe how different Maggie’s long fingers felt to her own. Her whole body was humming and squirming, and when she reached her release she laughed and only kissed back harder.

The summer had trapped John between joy and heartache, terror and pleasure. She felt consumed and unsure of herself, scared but amazed. Terrified that if she voiced any opinion that Margaret might either rage or stop (and God, she never wanted her to stop). She recognised her family’s tendency to take things a bit far in herself that summer. Was this the way her father felt when he first spent the night with a bottle of gin? Had he been intoxicated or infatuated? She could no longer quite remember her own mind, she was so completely enraptured and torn apart. 

They had parted on a sour note. Maggie had been insistent that if John returned to school she was as good as betraying her. She had screamed and raved. John had tried to say that she had to, that she was fifteen and that her Father insisted. But Maggie wouldn’t hear of it. Maggie wouldn’t let her into the house and John had cried too, for the first time in the terrifying, gorgeous summer. She adored Maggie but she left, and when she did return to school, she cried herself to sleep for weeks.

But then as Christmas approached and they prepared for the nativity play, John started to spend all her time with Eleanor. Ellie made John laugh, and they flicked paint at each other while painting scenery. It was nothing like Maggie – John kept her heart close whilst she admired Ellie’s quick wit and the beautiful curve of her hips. Ellie laughed at John’s earnest fears and said girls didn’t count and kissed her breathless in the cold December air. This time, John felt like she could keep her head whilst she explored the other girl. They experimented and laughed and got drunk together on illicit stolen sherry.

The next summer, Margaret was off at Edinburgh University and John’s father back in London (the experiment with country air not all that successful it would seem), and John thought of sending her a letter but was worried about how it might be received. She could feel the sore spot in her heart whenever she thought of her. But she was also slightly relieved. She had been happy with Ellie (and then later in the year with Susannah). It had been nice, it had been fun. The touch had remained as fabulous but there had been less heartbreak. Less risk of crisis. Obviously, she couldn’t talk to anyone about it, so John decided to let it lie. To let herself take pleasure where she could find it, but not risk exposure by letting a girl get too close. If the terrifying, overwhelming affair with Maggie was the alternative, she preferred to keep things safer and more simple.

……………………………………………..

Sherlock was initially shocked that John had broken the silence of their stakeout. She prepared to shout at John to get down so they could continue to observe (as was surely the point), but as the woman turned towards them, and Morty Tregannis turned and saw the mysterious Maggie, Sherlock realised it was too late – the only way out was onwards, through this change in circumstance.

John looked like a startled animal. Her fists were clenched tight, and Sherlock could see that she was lost in her own mind. Sherlock looked back towards Maggie and Tregannis and cursed herself for her own slowness – Maggie had a knife and was creeping ever closer to Morty. Maggie’s aims were immediately obvious to Sherlock. Furious at her own lack of attention, Sherlock shouted, “Billy – we need lights!” then more quietly added, “Maggie, take a step back.” (There was no reason to assume John would shout out an irrelevant name.)

John roused herself and seemed to finally understand the situation in front of her. Sherlock’s mind was racing through her deductions – both making connections about John (and why she was being so abominably slow), and how she was connected to this woman who was surely Brenda’s lover rather than anyone to do with John.

“He killed her!” Maggie let out. Her voice tearful, but determined (Sherlock smiled slightly to herself as that certainly confirmed the theory that she was Brenda’s lover).

“I know, he did”, replied Sherlock, “but we can take him to the metropolitan constables, they’ll arrest him”. Sherlock’s mind was racing, sorting facts and making connections. For now, she decided to keep Maggie talking.

“They’ll never believe it! No one ever believes me.” Maggie was trembling, but quite determined. Seeing that John was now firmly in the present and circling around, Sherlock tried to give her time.

“I’ll make them believe you – I know he took the poison you brought back (for study I assume? Or perhaps your own plans?)”. John looked over sharply as her parenthetical statements started to rather distract her from her plan so she returned to the point, “Maggie, I will get him stopped”.

“Who cares about him? It’s Brenda who matters – She had been waiting for me and he killed her”. Morty Tregannis started to edge away from her, “Don’t move!” she said, flailing her wickedly long, fine-bladed knife in his direction.

The machete was over a foot long and vicious. Sherlock was aware that it could slice through skin easily. Look at this woman – clearly an explorer who worked with her hands (look at the width of her wrist in the dominant compared to non-dominant hand). She was very strong, and in her hands a knife like that would be through the trachea and great veins in one swipe – an invariably fatal injury. Understanding the danger that John was in, Sherlock tasted bitter metal in her mouth as the rush of adrenalin flooded her system. Her heart pounding, she watched as John moved stealthily behind the stalls to come behind Maggie. Aware of her own important role in keeping Maggie’s attention focussed firmly on her, Sherlock continued (though she loathed repetition), “Well then, justice for Brenda. He’ll be hanged, I’ll prove it”.

“I need to do it, she was mine and she’s dead.” Maggie’s voice broke over the statement and her sobbing breaths intensified. But despite her shaking hands, her resolve seemed worryingly certain.

John was no fool, and knew to keep her distance from the blade. She had taken one of the music stands from the orchestra pit and hit out at Maggie’s hand. The blade clanged to the ground, falling only inches from Maggie’s foot. Their silent double act had worked. Sherlock had kept Maggie safely distracted, whilst John had managed to surprise and disarm her. Now that Sherlock was free, she rushed in to join the fray. 

Maggie was struggling wildly. She hit out, half a head taller than John. John tried to duck out of the way and then came back at her to attempt to subdue her. Whilst John tried to grab Maggie around the waist, she was caught off balance and knocked to the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Sherlock saw Morty Tregannis, using the cover of the disturbance to back quietly away.

Up in the Gods, Billy had apparently sorted the lights. The bright flare of the main limelight arced across the stage, down across the pit and then found Sherlock rushing in. Turning to add her full body weight to the blow, she struck Maggie hard with the side of her hand.

Maggie reached out to fight back, catching Sherlock awkwardly over her kidneys. Rather less pleased than usual to have her deduction confirmed, Sherlock was immediately aware of Maggie’s strength earnt from hard years of digging in desert rock. But despite her strength and her desperation, Maggie had very little skill. Sherlock absorbed the force of her next blow, and turned Maggie’s arm back onto itself, causing Maggie to cry out in pain.

Seizing her advantage, Sherlock flipped Maggie over her hip and hard down onto her side. Reinforcing the uncomfortable strain on Maggie arm, Sherlock forced her over onto her front. Breathing hard, Sherlock looked up for John.

Whilst John and Sherlock fought below, Billy had the lime trained on Sherlock and was rushing to light the other beams. The stalls were gradually brightening as he succeeded in lighting each flame in turn, and moving the heavy lights from their usual gaze over the stage to the action on the floor. As he lit the colours, they leant a ghostly air to the continued struggle. Sherlock found John as Billy lit another light, catching John and Morty’s silhouettes in a flare of green light.

John had apparently recovered herself and gone after Morty. Still carrying the appropriated music stand as a weapon, John knocked Morty’s legs out from under him. Making quick work of it, she left the usually fastidious Morty a crumpled mess on the floor. John held him down, with a knee against his back and looked up to Sherlock for their next move. Perhaps John’s style was less artistic than Sherlock’s strange leaps, but she was equally effective (especially with a music stand) and as she caught Sherlock’s eye, John grinned.

Sherlock felt an answering buoyancy rising up in her, “Caught one murderer and prevented another, rather a good day’s work!” Standing to kick the machete away from anyone’s reach, Sherlock executed a little pirouette of sheer joy and replaced her arm-lock with her foot between Maggie’s shoulder blades to keep her retained, and said with relish, “Wonderful!”

Billy shouted down from the Gods “You two alright down there?”

“You can see for yourself Billy, we’re quite fine. Do try to avoid repetition, especially when there might be a fight”, said Sherlock, snapping out the last “t”. She continued, more calmly, “Please do summon the Met. You can send a telegram from around the corner”. In an increasingly jaunty tone, she added “John, how are you with knots?”

In the event, knots were not required. A rather timorous Morty was escorted to his office and immediately started babbling, “It’s still there, on the lights at the stage foot. Oh God, you have to take it off. What if someone else dies? Oh, poor Brenda”.

“I would have more sympathy for your position if you weren’t in fact the one who killed her”, Sherlock snapped back. “Oh good Lord, do be quiet. To answer your question, yes. It is entirely easy for even the slowest at the Met to perceive; both that you did it and that you didn’t really intend to kill her – just scare them all.” Building up to a rather frenetic pace, she added in a quick staccato, “You know where the poison remains. You are one of only three who can operate the lights. You have motive – you want to convince your siblings to give up their share in the cinema (the details of the will were mentioned in _The_ _Times_ ). You still have the poison on your person (look at the way you fiddle with your left jacket pocket). The mark of your hand is in the dust on the foot lamps (they are rarely moved) – now that one may be a challenge to persuade the met to admit, sometimes I long for Paris. But I think even without that we have things well covered. Don’t you?”

“Brilliant”, said John “A handprint, I’ve never even heard of that?”

Sherlock looked a little pink at the praise, but carried on in her break neck pace and matter of fact tone, “Yes, I compared it to the marks he left on his blotter the evening Brenda died. He’s been sweating so much (suspicious in its own right) that the mark was apparent. Once he is in custody I’ll try to persuade the constables to take a tracing of his hand.” As ever, Sherlock seemed to forget her audience and get caught up in her train of thought, “What we need is a way to preserve the mark in the dust for comparison at the trial. Perhaps it could be adequately lit for a photograph? Would the impression be marked enough? Potentially a way to use the oil left from the skin? I think this deserves future work. Fabulous, a case ready to close and a promising field of experimentation.”

Throughout the exchange Morty sat, despondent on the chair with John standing as a makeshift guard while they waited for Billy to return with a constable.

On the other side of the poky office, Maggie sat on a bench. She was a study in abject misery: slumped against the wall as though completely unable to support her own weight. She seemed bereft; her only movement the continued half stifled sobs. Curled in on herself, she seemed so much smaller now than only a few short minutes ago, and her stillness was vivid contrast to her earlier energy. 

John turned to Sherlock and said under her breath, “What about Maggie? She’s going to be done for attempted murder.”

“No, I don’t think she will be.” Sherlock was silent for a long minute, then directed at Maggie she asked, "What were your plans?"

"I had intended to bury myself in central Africa. My work there is but half finished."

"Go and do the other half," said Sherlock. "I, at least, am not prepared to prevent you."

“You need to leave now”, Sherlock was back to her usual pace of speech, “Rouse yourself. I hear Billy returning. The constables will be following him shortly. We can prove this case without you both (I’ll enjoy the challenge), and you’ll only end up embroiled in nonsense. Go quickly now to the Banner’s house with Billy and then back to Africa as quick as may be achieved.”

 

…………………………………………………

Many hours later, trying to keep herself awake whilst propped up against the back of a desk in the office of J Division station in Bethnal Green, John asked, “Wherever did you learn to do that? I’ve never seen you fight like that before?”

“I learned from Edith Garrud, a pupil of Sadakazu Uyenishi”, Sherlock replied (as though that was an entirely the obvious thing that John could have thought of, if only she’d tried a little harder). “It did work rather well, didn’t it?”

“Yes, I’d say that was an understatement”, John smiled.

“I was impressed with your use of a music stand too. I think I had rather overlooked its potential as an offensive weapon.”

They were finally alone. The night shift at J Division was fairly quiet and the day staff wouldn’t be there until 8am. A snivelling Morty had been escorted down to the cells and no one was quite sure what to do with Maggie. She had failed to get away when Sherlock had suggested it. Like a puppet with her strings cut, she seemed to have lost all motivation when the fight was over. For now she was sat in an interview room with the wife of a Detective Sergeant. Paperwork was being done and loose ends tied up. Sherlock, reluctant to be pushed out of the process, and John, anxious about Maggie despite herself, had stayed through the night. They had given statements and answered inquiries. They had drunk questionable tea and waited.

“Was it for me?” asked John, shifting on her uncomfortable perch, “Your kindness towards Maggie. I could see that you saw through me on that one as ever”.

“No, not precisely. I have never loved, John, but if I did and if the person I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows?” She turned towards John, “You were between fourteen and seventeen when you knew her – young but old enough for things to be quite mutual. It wasn’t a happy affair, you hadn’t kept in touch and you weren’t pleased to see her, but it was passionate. You’ve been touching your face and licking your lips all evening. I think it was a short affair though, I think you’d bear the scars more closely if it had gone on long.”

“Quite right, in every respect. It was the summer I was fifteen and she was just a couple of years older. We never spoke again after I returned to school.” Switching to a harsh, half whisper John added, “ _And are you sure this is a good conversation for a police station_?”

“Don’t be dull, no one is listening. Why would you have taken it to have been a favour to you? After all these years, you’re no longer young. Why would it concern you? Also, after your activities in theatres, I hardly think much of your decisions about appropriate time and place”. Sherlock sounded genuinely confused that John might still care.

“Of course I would wish you to be kind to an acquaintance”, said John, a little stiffly.

“That is hardly necessary with me, John. Not five sentences ago I was referring to your relationship as passionate. Do you wish me to leave you to go to the Banner’s so that you can re-kindle it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous”. John took a deep, clarifying breath, “Sherlock, as you commented it was half my life ago (as you so politely pointed out) and whilst you correctly mentioned, it was a…. passionate…. association, it was not a very happy one. I’m quite happy to see it consigned to history. They’ll be no running off from me.”

“Good”, said Sherlock, shortly

They lapsed back into silence and John began to doze, her head nodding and her legs drawn up for warmth. In the mid-summer, dawn broke early and the light was bright when the six o’clock bells started to ring in the church opposite, startling John awake. “What?” she said, half asleep, “It can’t be six! I’m starting that job to day Sherlock. Shit. I have to run”. Getting up and slamming her flattened hat onto her head she started re-tying her boot laces and getting ready. “You’ll be ok here?” Without waiting for an answer, John ran out of the door.

For once feeling the weight of all the things they left unsaid. Sherlock decided that she too, should call it a night. Leaving a note with the young constable at the door, she left the station, opting to walk home across the city as it woke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> English summer rain – a nod to the gorgeously evocative Placebo song (I adored Placebo – I was a sad gay teenager at the turn of the millennium, what did you expect?).
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> Conveyancing – the UK legal term for buying and selling property, a common type of routine work for a solicitor (I’m not sure, but I think this word may be not at all used outside of the UK).
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> The Benson family really did exist. There is a biography of Mary Benson (the mother in the family) that I read to help with this chapter: As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil: The Impossible Life of Mary Benson by Rodney Bolt. They were a fascinating, creative and slightly tragic family. Mary and Edward (who became the Archbishop of Canterbury) had a difficult marriage. They both had same sex affairs and struggled in their relationship with each other. In trying to avoid the temptation of men, Edward groomed his 11 year old cousin, Mary Sidgwick, and married her at 18. They had six children (all of whom had affairs with people of the same sex), and most of the family suffered from depression and probably bipolar disorder and they were known for their awful rages. In 1907 Maggie tries to kill her mother’s female lover and is sent to the Priory asylum (where she died in 1916).
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> But Margaret Benson was an incredible woman and whilst living with her mental health problems achieved some really remarkable things. She was one of the first women in the country to earn a degree and was the first woman given permission to excavate in Egypt with her companion Janet Gourlay. Plus the timing is almost perfect! Maggie returned from Egypt for the last time in 1899 so I had to fudge the dates by a couple of years. This story needs someone returning from abroad with a mysterious poison – who better than a real person, a clever, educated, well-travelled lesbian. I was so amazed to find these real people!
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> Maggie Benson was educated and brave and clever. I find her very admirable. But, in this chapter I do not make her history with John entirely positive. I wanted this affair to be a catalyst for John – to encourage her to guard her heart and not look for committed relationships, but I really hope in that I managed to be respectful. I did use the word ‘madness’ to describe the family – in this period the family were regularly described as such and I think a 15 year old John would probably use this terminology. This is meant to be a story of a teenager overwhelmed, not a comment on dating anyone with mental health challenges!
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> Also – there have always been (in my experience) very few degrees of separation between lesbians… you always know someone who used to date someone’s girlfriend. Always. I think it is completely plausible that John might have acquaintances in common with other lesbians in London! Plus – Maggie was really living in Canterbury at the time and that was where the meeting between Nancy and Kitty happened in Tipping the Velvet – a marvellous coincidence.
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> Fighting – in this fic I think that Sherlock has learnt ju-jitsu from Edith Garrud who was actually living in London at this time and in a few years after the setting of this fic, taught suffragettes to fight. See this [article](http://womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/?tag=jui-jitsu-downs-the-footpads) about Edith Garrud. Or this BBC article about [suffragitsu](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34425615>)
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> Or feel free to check out my tumblr [post](http://girlofthemirrorjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/136218192046/fighting-talk) for my thoughts and lots of images about John and Sherlock in a fight!
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> On the subject of incredible coincidences – the only person teaching women martial arts was Edith Garrud who learnt from Sadakazu Uyenishi. And he was invited to the UK aged 20 by Barton-Wight – the inventor of bartitsu the martial art that ACD had the original Sherlock Holmes know. (The name was misquoted in The Times as Baritsu and copied along with its description as a Japanese Wrestling system by Arthur Conan Doyle into the Empty House).  
> Despite 20 years difference in age and a different gender – my fem!Sherlock and ACD Sherlock learnt essentially the same martial art with no planning for that to happen in advance – just apparently me and ACD thinking idly, “what sounds plausible?” and coming up with the same answer! I am so happy about this. So ridiculously happy.
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> (Yes I know that ACD was famous for having awful continuity and picking silly things at moments like this… I’m excited anyway :) ) 
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> The exchange between Sherlock and Maggie where she suggests that she should complete her work in Africa is taken word for word from the [ACD](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2349/2349-h/2349-h.htm) (though a switched a Holmes to a Sherlock).


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